Rev. John Pinasco, SJ, (11 June 1837 – 9 March 1897), was born in the vicinity of Genoa and entered the Jesuit Novitiate at in 1853. In 1858, he was sent to the Jesuit college at Stonyhurst to study philosophy with Rev. Father Bayma, SJ, one of the premier professors of the Society of Jesus in Europe. Pinasco came directly to Santa Clara College in 1860, where he taught until 1876 with a four-year break for additional theological training at Georgetown University between 1868 and 1872. Fr. Pinasco died at the in Los Gatos, aged 59.