Father Walter Lovi was a Roman Catholic priest and architect, active in Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century. He was born in Edinburgh in 1796, the son of a Scottish mother and an Italian father. He studied at Scots College in Rome, and at St Sulpice's seminary in Paris, where he was ordained at the age of 26.

The Pontifical Scots College in Rome is the main seminary for the training of men for the priesthood from the dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland. It was established by a bull of Pope Clement VIII on 5 December 1600.