Scott received the BA from Indiana University (1968) and MA and PhD degrees from Rutgers University (1975, 1982). His field of research is the art and architecture of early modern Italy and of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes. He is the author of Images of Nepotism: The Painted Ceilings of Palazzo Barberini (Princeton, 1991), Architecture for the Shroud: Relic and Ritual in Turin (Chicago, 2003; awarded the 2004 College Art Association Charles Rufus Morey Prize), and Fascism’s Urban Epicenter: Remaking Rome in the Era of Charismatic Politics (Leiden-Boston, 2026). He is co-author of The University of Iowa Guide to Campus Architecture (Iowa City, 2006; 2nd revised ed., 2016). Other publications include studies of Borromini, Guarini, Pietro da Cortona, Annibale Carracci, Bernini, the patronage of the Barberini family, and urbanism in early modern Rome and Turin. His articles have appeared in The Art Bulletin, The Burlington Magazine, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, Storia dell'Arte, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, and Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. He is also Associate Editor of the Cambridge World History of Religious Architecture (Cambridge, 2014). Scott has been a fellow at the American Academy in Rome, the National Humanities Center, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Stanford Humanities Center, and the Fulbright Senior Specialists Program.

Research Interests

• Art and Architecture of early Modern Italy
• Italian Fascist Architecture and Urbanism

Awards

• Fulbright Senior Specialists Grant, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
• Wolfsonian-Florida International University Fellowship Program
• Institute for Advanced Study Visiting Member, Princeton University