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Having changed six players ahead of the historic 22-21 victory over France at Rome's Stadio Olimpico, Mallett has reverted to almost the same team that previously lost narrowly to Wales a couple of weeks beforehand.
One of the key decisions, though, was keeping Andrea Masi at full-back, and hence Luke McLean on the bench, following the former's man-of-the-match performance against the French.
And Masi admitted that he expected to retain that position.
"Honestly, yes, I thought I played well (against France), I can play other roles but I played well and I thought I'd stay there," he said.
"It's a role I like. I've already said it before, I've played centre, on the wing but it's not for me to decide where I play.
"I was given the position that Nick chose, it's not a problem for me, the important thing for me is to live these moments to the max because they aren't frequent.
"I don't know if it's my best position, I think I have the right physical attributes to play centre but I played well at full-back.
"But that doesn't mean anything, I'm a back, I can play anywhere across the backline and that's an advantage."
Australian-born Kris Burton comes in at fly-half for Luciano Orquera, who is struggling with an ankle problem and drops to the bench.
"It's partly a technical decision but also partly to do with the unfortunate problem Orquera has with his ankle which doesn't allow him to play two successive matches, he's suffering too much," said team manager Luigi Troiani.
"We'll see after the Six Nations if he needs an operation."
Alberto Sgarbi comes back into the side at inside centre in place of Gonzalo Garcia while South African-born Quintin Geldenhuys replaces Santiago Dellape in the second row.
Leonardo Ghiraldini and Salvatore Perugini come in for Carlo Festuccia and Andrea Lo Cicero in the front row and Paul Derbyshire replaces Robert Barbieri at flanker.
Troiani explained the changes were made to ensure Italy don't suffer from fatigue against Scotland.
"We've made changes to give greater freshness to the team, we've got a good squad of high level players so it's a good chance to rotate players of quality," he said.
"When the team needs an extra shove we can do it and it's logical in such a physically demanding tournament that players don't play every week."
Perugini believes Italy must guard against getting carried away after the France success, their first ever against them in the Six Nations and only their second in 33 tests against their neighbours following a friendly victory in 1997.
"The win over France doesn't show our true level, it's an exploit as were the performances against Ireland and Wales where we lost," he said.
"Our level is very different, that's not our reality. Games like that happen once every 14 years because we last beat them 14 years ago.
"We've shown that on a good day with all the conditions in our favour we can put any team in difficulty but that doesn't mean that our level is beating France, unfortunately."
The Italian team:
Andrea Masi; Tommaso Benvenuti, Gonzalo Canale, Alberto Sgarbi, Mirco Bergamasco; Kris Burton, Fabio Semenzato; Sergio Parisse (capt), Paul Derbyshire, Alessandro Zanni; Quintin Geldenhuys, Carlo Del Fava; Martin Castrogiovanni, Leonardo Ghiraldini, Salvatore Perugini
Substitutes: Carlo Festuccia, Andrea Lo Cicero, Valerio Bernabo, Robert Barbieri, Pablo Canavosio, Luciano Orquera, Luke McLean
