Pietro, an eminent Italian painter, whose family name was Vannucci, was born at Citta della Pieve in 1446. His study of art was prosecuted amid the embarrassments of poverty. He acquired his first lessons while drudging as a shop-boy in the employment of a painter in Perugia. Then repairing to Florence, he commenced a regular course of study, with no means of support but the small pittance which his inexperienced pencil could earn. Yet in these unpropitious circumstances, Perugino soon attained great eminence. His pictures became notable for their graceful and elegant drawing, and their chaste and harmonious colouring, and began to be exported to various parts of Europe. At the same time, he was extensively and closely employed in the decoration of religious edifices in several different cities. He painted pictures for the churches and convents of Florence, Siena, Vallombrosa, Naples, Rome, and Perugia. So pressing, indeed, were his engagements, that he was often hurried into repeating the same figures, attitudes, and landscapes, over and over again. No less celebrated was Perugino as a teacher of art. The eminent painters Pinturicchio of Perugia, Rocco Zoppo of Florence, Giovanni Spagnuolo, and Andrea Luigi of Assisi, studied under him, and closely imitated his manner. The great Raphael, too, was his pupil, and for some time painted after his style. Perugino died at his native place in 1524.

Some of the extant works of Perugino are preserved in Florence. A celebrated fresco, representing the Crucifixion in the centre, with the Mater Dolorosa and San Bernardo on either side, is in the church of Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi; and pictures of "Our Lord in the Garden of Olives," "The Assumption of the Virgin," "A Dead Christ," and "Two Monks of the Order of Vallombrosa," are in the Academy of the Fine Arts. (See Vasari's Lives of Painters, &c., and Lanzi's History of Painting.)