His older brother Roberto Nova is Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan (Politecnico di Milano).
[4] With the support of research grants from Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (1985–86, 1989) he gained the title Dottorato di Ricerca from the University of Milan in 1986 with a thesis on the Brescian artist Girolamo Romanino and the 16th century School of painters.
[1] From 1986 to 1987 Nova was a J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellow and his first post, from 1988 to 1994, was as Assistant Professor at Stanford University.
[5] He has lectured and taught at various international institutions including the Humboldt University of Berlin (1994) and the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) – CEHTA (Centre d’histoire et théorie des arts) in Paris (2001-2),[5] and published extensively in Italian, German and English.
A major project has been as editor of a new German translation of Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori by Giorgio Vasari published by Verlag Klauss Wagenbach in Berlin between 2004 and 2015.