Angela Merici or Angela de Merici (/məˈriːtʃi/ mə-REE-chee, Italian: [ˈandʒela (de) meˈriːtʃi]; 21 March 1474 – 27 January 1540) was an Italian religious educator, who is honored as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. She founded the Company of St. Ursula in 1535 in Brescia, in which women dedicated their lives to the service of the church through the education of girls. From this organisation later sprang the monastic Order of Saint Ursula, whose nuns established places of prayer and learning throughout Europe and, later, worldwide, most notably in North America.