Isabella Losa, also known as Isabella Losa of Cordova or Losa de Cordova (1491-1564) was a doctor of
theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
and
nun
A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...
.
Isabella Losa was known for her knowledge of
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
,
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, and
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
.
She received the degree of
Doctor of Divinity
A Doctor of Divinity (D.D. or DDiv; la, Doctor Divinitatis) is the holder of an advanced academic degree in divinity.
In the United Kingdom, it is considered an advanced doctoral degree. At the University of Oxford, doctors of divinity are ran ...
from the University of Cordova. After the death of her husband in 1539, she became a Clarissan
abbess
An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey.
Description
In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic ...
and moved to Vercelli in Piedmont in 1553, where she founded an orphanage, Santa Maria di Loreto. She died in 1564 at age 74.
[Koren Whipp, "Isabella Losa," Project Continua, Accessed 2.1.14. http://www.projectcontinua.org/losa-isabella/ ]
Isabella Losa's name was included in the
Heritage Floor of artist
Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...
's work
The Dinner Party
''The Dinner Party'' is an installation artwork by feminist artist Judy Chicago. Widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork, it functions as a symbolic history of women in civilization. There are 39 elaborate place settings on a triangul ...
.
See also
*
Beatriz Galindo
Beatriz Galindo, sometimes spelled Beatrix and also known as La Latina ( – 23 November 1535), was a Spanish Latinist and educator. She was a writer, humanist and a teacher of Queen Isabella of Castile and her children. She was one of the mos ...
*
Francisca de Lebrija Francisca de Lebrija was a 16th-century lecturer at the University of Alcalá de Henares in Spain.
Francisca lived in a time when it was very uncommon for educated women to teach and lecture in a university. Spain was one of the few places where wo ...
*
Luisa de Medrano
Luisa de Medrano (Atienza 9 August 1484 – 1527), was a Spanish scholar. She is known as the first female Professor in the Universtiy of Salamanca. Luisa belonged to the group of Renaissance women who were famous for their knowledge and called by ...
*
Juliana Morell
Juliana Morell (16 February 1594 – 26 June 1653) was a Catalan Dominican nun and intellectual child prodigy. Some sources assert that she received a doctorate in canon law in Avignon in 1608. In 1941, Sylvanus Morley traced this to an 1859 misrea ...
References
External links
Project Continua: Biography of Isabella LosaProject Continua is a web-based multimedia resource dedicated to the creation and preservation of women’s intellectual history from the earliest surviving evidence into the 21st Century.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Losa, Isabella
1491 births
1564 deaths
16th-century Spanish women
Christian Hebraists
Poor Clares
16th-century Spanish people
Spanish Renaissance people
Renaissance women