Giovanni Antonio Grassi SJ (anglicized as John Anthony Grassi; 10 September 1775 – 12 December 1849) was an Italian Catholic priest and Jesuit who led many academic and religious institutions in Europe and the United States, including Georgetown College in Washington, D.C., and the Pontificio Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide in Rome.

The following year, he was ordered to replace the last remaining Jesuit missionary in China; this began a five-year journey across Europe in which he was ultimately unable to secure passage to the distant country.

For significantly improving its curriculum and public reputation, as well as obtaining its congressional charter, Grassi became known as Georgetown's "second founder".

In 1835, Grassi moved to Rome as the rector of the Pontificio Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide, a school for missionaries, and was later named the Jesuit Superior General's assistant for Italy.

[6] Grassi went to the Jesuit College in Polotsk in 1801 to complete his priestly education,[4] while the master of novices of the Colorno novitiate, Joseph Pignatelli, assured him that he would eventually return to Italy.

[b] On their arrival on 19 January 1805,[9] Gruber informed them that they would be sent to Peking to replace the one remaining Jesuit missionary in China, Louis Antoine de Poirot.

[10] The General outfitted them with new vestments and chalices for celebrating Mass, mathematical and scientific instruments, medicines, furs for the winter, and gifts for the people.

[10] Shortly after departing, Grassi and two others fell ill and were attended by a doctor for ten days in a small town on the Russian–Swedish border.

Lord George Macartney, the former British ambassador to China, failed to convince the directors of the East India Company to allow the Jesuits to travel on their vessels.

[41] When Grassi assumed office, Georgetown was struggling financially, with just 31 students enrolled, and Carroll was considering closing the school.

[33] Grassi made by his own hand or had a Jesuit brother make wooden orreries (since the college did not have money to purchase brass ones) for displaying the motion of the planets, as well as other apparatuses to demonstrate principles of mechanics or hydraulics.

He maintained good relations with the American political leaders and with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Andrey Yakovlevich Dashkov, who frequently visited the college.

[43] Though he opposed what he viewed as unbridled freedom in the United States, he approved that it was conducive to the free exercise of religion, which was banned by some of Europe's civil governments.

[30] He criticized slavery in the United States as being inconsistent with a national spirit of liberty, and considered it the country's greatest flaw, but wrote that the material conditions of some slaves were superior to those of Europe's peasantry, and regarded immediate, universal emancipation as too dangerous.

[47] After the pope restored the Society of Jesus in 1814,[48] Grassi negotiated a concordat with Carroll's successor, Archbishop Leonard Neale (a brother of Charles and Francis) regarding the division of parishes in the United States between the Jesuits and the secular clergy.

[50] In Archbishop Carroll's estimation, Grassi had "revived the College of Ge-Town, which [had] received great improvement in the number of students and course of studies.

[56] Notwithstanding initial instructions to return to the United States,[59] Grassi remained in Italy, as his physicians told him that he would not survive a voyage across the Atlantic due to a hernia.

[64] While in Turin, he developed a relationship with the House of Savoy, and was appointed confessor to King Charles Felix and Queen Maria Cristina of Sardinia.

[66] On 10 May 1831, Grassi was appointed the first provincial superior of the newly created Jesuit Province of Turin as well as the rector of the College of the Holy Martyrs.

During this time, he was permitted to continue serving as confessor to Maria Cristina,[22] for a total of 25 years,[67] even though it required that he reduce his duties as provincial.

[22] In 1840, Grassi became the rector of the Pontificio Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide, replacing Liberio Figari.

[63] His transfer to Rome was made despite strong protests from Filiberto Avogadro di Collobiano, a Sardinian senator, on the grounds that it would be cruel to Maria Cristina.

[22] By virtue of his American citizenship, he was permitted to remain in Rome—as well as even wear his cassock in public and teach classes—during the revolution of 1848 and under the government of the Roman Republic in 1849.