It would be very interesting to know the name of this painter, as, according to Vasari, he had great influence upon Pietro. "He did not cease," Vasari continues, "to set before Pietro the great advantages and honours that were to be obtained from painting by all who acquired the power of labouring in it effectually, and kindled in the mind of his pupil the desire to become one of those masters." We enter upon a curious speculation when we begin to surmise the name of this master. Lanzi speaks of an artist known as Pietro of Perugia, but conjectures that Niccolò of Foligno (known also as Niccolò Liberatore, and incorrectly as Niccolò Alunno) may have been Perugino's first master. Mariotti attaches much more importance to the early teaching of Bonfigli. Fanelli, quoted by Lupattelli,[B] speaks of "a poor and obscure youth from Città della Pieve in the school of Alunno receiving instruction from Niccolò Alunno and becoming eventually the immortal Perugino, master of Raffaello." Crowe and Cavalcaselle take Bonfigli as this early master, while later writers, notably Mr. Berenson, attach far more importance to the training of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo.
Leaving out of consideration for a space the question of what Perugino learned from Piero della Francesca and in the botegas of Florence, it maybe well to briefly glance at the influences already named.
Niccolò da Foligno was perhaps the originator of the school of Umbrian painters in which Perugino thereafter took so important a place. He was clearly a pupil of Benozzo Gozzoli, who derived his training from Beato Angelico; but into the sweetness, harmony, and tender feeling of these earlier masters Niccolò forced a fiercer spirit, an uncompromising realism, which is at times almost painful in its stress. Niccolò was a man of forceful spirit, earnest and powerful, and with a certain dry technique and rigid definition that is in full accord with the penetrating spirit that composed the pictures. Foligno is quite close to Perugia, and there is no difficulty in realising the presence of Niccolò at times in that city. His influence is marked in Perugino's early work, but it does not stand alone, and has associated with it characteristics that could not have come from the Folignate botega. Bonfigli (Benedetto Buonfiglio), to whom Vasari once refers at the conclusion of his life of Pinturicchio, was the prominent painter of Perugia. He was greatly esteemed in that city, and so largely confined his labours to his native place that even now it is impossible, save in the gallery of that city, to gain anything like an adequate knowledge of his art.