If among his many virtues there was one that stood out in particular, I would highlight Professor Ismael Sánchez Bella's magnanimity. With an unwavering trust in God, D. Ismael - as we knew him - set himself great goals in all the undertakings he undertook, in service to society and in particular to the university community. His natural optimism and enthusiasm were at odds with his short-sighted, faint-hearted and lacking in vitality.

In 1952, at barely thirty years of age, Ismael undertook the difficult task entrusted to him by St. Josemaría: to start a university in Navarra. In those years, in addition to Full Professor of History of Law, D. Ismael was director of the School of Law and from 1954 to 1960, President of the General Study of Navarre. From that year, when the University of Navarra was established as such, until 1986, Mr. Ismael continued to serve as Vice President. In July 1985 he was appointed president of the board Board of Directors of the association of Friends of the University of Navarra, position which he held until February 1998.

The absorbing performance of the work of government and, in final, of direct service to the University, did not prevent him from maintaining during all these years an intense dedication to the research and the teaching, with the passion and enthusiasm that always characterized him. In fact, in the field of the Indian History of Law , Mr. Ismael became one of the great international specialists. In this field it is worth mentioning his finding and subsequent edition of the Recopilación de las Indias by Antonio de León Pinelo, after twelve years of research in the most diverse archives of America and Spain. Or his book on the financial organization of the Indies, which in 1968 earned him the prestigious international award of History of Law Indiano Ricardo Levene.

But D. Ismael was not only a great researcher. He was also a teacher and promoter of many teaching and research vocations at the University. One sample of this is the forty thesis of doctorate that he directed throughout his life and the numerous professors who were trained under his teaching, many of them coming from the American continent.

A specialist in Indian law, from his teaching we have his carefully written 'Lecciones de History of Law'.

His love for the University and for the students also made D. Ismael a great professor, one of those who are remembered many years after finishing the degree program. In spite of the time that the Governing Body of the University and his research tasks demanded of him, D. Ismael always considered the teaching a priority task of the academic staff of the University of Navarra. He also went ahead in this commitment to his students. He worked with great care in the preparation of each class.

Endowed with natural qualities for oratory and exhibition in public, he nevertheless left no room for improvisation. From his teaching we have his carefully written Lessons from History of Law. In addition, he devoted many hours to listening to and advising his students on the most varied problems of life. Only this generosity in service to his students, from Degree or from postgraduate program, explains the numerous Christmas greetings he wrote and received every year from alumni, from the most varied corners of Spain and the Americas. 

During the last years of his life, illness prevented Mr. Ismael from continuing to work in Indian law, his great passion for so many years. However, his increasing physical and mental limitations did not prevent him from continuing to cultivate attention with the One who throughout his life was the true engine of his overflowing activity and the ultimate source of his magnanimity. In his wheelchair, it was possible to see him every day at the 12:00 Mass at chapel of the University Clinic, where he spent the last stage of his fruitful life, surrounded by the affection of so many who saw in Ismael the example of a full life, spent in the service of God and others.