Geoffrey Scott

Who was Geoffrey Scott?

Geoffrey Scott was an English scholar and poet, known as a historian of architecture. His biography of Isabelle de Charrière entitled The Portrait of Zelide won the 1925 James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

Born in Hampstead, Scott was educated at Rugby School and New College, Oxford. While still an undergraduate he was befriended by Mary Berenson, leading to his admission to the Florence 'circle' of Bernard Berenson. From 1907 to 1909 he was employed by Berenson; he worked on the design of the garden of I Tatti, the Berenson villa, with Cecil Ross Pinsent. This led to work on other gardens. It also brought him the friendship of John Maynard Keynes, who met him there.

In 1914 the publication of The Architecture of Humanism made him a reputation. He married in 1916 Lady Sybil Cutting, widowed in 1910. With little in the way of career, it has been suggested that an unlikely love affair with Vita Sackville-West from 1923 to 1925 spurred him into his later literary production.

At the time of his death, of pneumonia in New York, Geoffrey Scott had been retained as an editor of the papers of James Boswell.

He was one of Edith Wharton's close friends.