gain the indulgences of the Jubilee Year then being celebrated. Pope Clement VII, who had heard of her virtue and success with her school, invited her to remain in Rome. Merici disliked notoriety, however, and soon returned to Brescia. On 25 November 1535, Merici gathered with 12 young women who had joined in her work in a small house in Brescia near the Church of St. Afra, where together they committed themselves in the founding of the Company of St. Ursula, placed under the protection of the patroness of medieval universities. Her goal was to elevate family life through the Christian education of future wives and mothers. They were the first teaching order of women religious. Four years later the group had grown to 28. Merici taught her companions to serve God, but to remain in the world, teaching the girls of their own neighborhood, and to practice a religious form of life in their own homes. The members wore no special habit and took no formal religious vows. Merici wrote a Rule of Life for the group, which specified the practice of celibacy, poverty and obedience in their own homes. The Ursulines opened orphanages and schools. On 18 March 1537, she was elected "Mother and Mistress" of the group. The Rule she had written was approved in 1544 by Pope Paul III. When Merici died in Brescia on 27 January 1540, there were 24 communities of the Company of St. Ursula serving the Catholic Church through the region. Her body was clothed in the habit of a Franciscan tertiary and was interred in the Church of Sant'Afra. The traditional view is that Merici believed that better Christian education was needed for girls and young women, to which end she dedicated her life. Querciolo Mazzonis argues that the Company of St. Ursula was not originally intended as a charitable group specifically focused on the education of poor girls, but that this direction developed after her death in 1540, sometime after it received formal recognition in 1546. Veneration During her life, Merici had often prayed at the tombs of the Brescian martyrs at the Church of St. Afra in Brescia. She lived in small rooms attached to a priory of the Canons Regular of the Lateran. According to her wishes, after her death, she was interred in the Church of St Afra to be near the martyrs' remains. There her body