BA, Cornell University, 1987
MA, The Pennsylvania State University, 1993
PhD, The Pennsylvania State University, 2003
Anna K. Tuck-Scala is an art historian specializing in early modern art, with particular expertise in seventeenth-century Italian painting and the cultural heritage of Naples. With more than thirty years of teaching experience in Italy, she combines engagement with original works of art and archival research to bring the history of art to life.
After earning her BA in the history of art from Cornell University in 1987, Tuck-Scala moved to Naples, where she taught English at the University of Naples Federico II. She subsequently earned her MA (1993) and PhD (2003) in art history from The Pennsylvania State University. Returning to Italy in 1994 to conduct dissertation research in Naples, she began teaching art history to American undergraduates through Saint Mary’s College’s Rome Program. She joined the faculty of Temple University’s Rome Campus in 1999 and John Cabot University in Rome in 2008.
Her teaching encompasses ancient, Renaissance, and Baroque art, with particular emphasis on sacred spaces, Renaissance and Baroque Rome, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Neapolitan painting. She has also lectured for numerous American university study-abroad programs throughout Italy. In 2024, she began conducting interdisciplinary workshops with contemporary artists. In 2023, Temple University’s General Education program recognized her as a “GenEd Instructor Extraordinaire.”
Alongside her teaching, Tuck-Scala has conducted extensive archival research in Naples and published books, scholarly articles, and exhibition and book reviews since 1993. Her publications include an article on Caravaggio, articles on the artistic exchange between Naples and Spain, the first literary guide to Sorrento in English (2000) and a scholarly monograph devoted to Neapolitan painter Andrea Vaccaro (2012; reprinted in 2026).
Courses taught at JCU:
AH 143: World Art III: Visual Culture of the Early Modern World
AH 196: Introduction to Italian Renaissance Art
AH 294: Renaissance Rome and Its Monuments
AH 298: Baroque Rome and Its Monuments
AH 373: Caravaggio
AH 375: Selected Topics in Baroque Art: Painting in Naples
