José Miguel Petisco joined the Society of Jesus on September 29, 1738, at the novitiate in Villagarcía de Campos (Valladolid).
When the Jesuit order was expelled from Spain in 1767, he moved to Corsica for a year and then to Bologna, where he taught Sacred Scripture at the Fontanelli residence.
Petisco also edited and commented on works by Cicero, published the Georgics and the Eclogues of Virgil, and authored a Greek Grammar.
Scholars such as Antonio Astorgano Abajo have demonstrated that Torres Amat's Bible is substantially based on Petisco's work.
[1] According to Francisco Lafarga, Petisco also translated Esther by Jean Racine under the title La inocencia triunfante.