Davide Scotto

Davide Scotto is Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity and of the Abrahamic Religions at the University of Pavia. His research examines how Christian scholars—from the Middle Ages to the present—have interpreted Judaism and Islam, as well as the hermeneutical, political, and religious implications of their intellectual engagements. In his work, he pays special attention to source criticism, idealized connections drawn across historical periods, the use of scriptural exegesis to make sense of non-Christian religions, the detection of anachronisms, and the study of contemporary projections onto the past. His recent works focus on the Christian translation and interpretation of the Qur’an between the medieval and early modern periods; programs of conversion and evangelization targeting Jews and Muslims in the Mediterranean; the Christian backdrop of European Orientalists; and the emergence of the concept of Abrahamic religions in the twentieth century. He recently published Juan de Segovia and the Qur’an. Converting the Muslims in Fifteenth-Century Europe (De Gruyter, 2024), and co-edited, with Kurt Villads Jensens, Riccoldo da Monte di Croce (†1320): Missionary to the Middle East and Expert on Islam (Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, 2024). He was trained in Church History, Medieval History, and Medieval Latin Philology in Turin, Pavia, and Florence. He has held research and teaching positions at the Protestant Faculty of Theology and the Center for Islamic Theology at the University of Tübingen; at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Madrid (ERC CORPI); at the Universities of Basel and Frankfurt am Main; and at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” (ERC EuQu). He serves on the editorial board of the Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa (L.S. Olschki), is a member of the Italian Society of Historians of Christianity (CUSCC), and a fellow of Villa Vigoni, the German-Italian Center for European Dialogue. At Pavia, he co-founded the Center for Interreligious Studies at the Almo Collegio Borromeo.