Sculpted in 1872 by Ottaviano Ottaviani, this statue is the city's tribute to its most illustrious painter. He is the only Umbrian Renaissance artist, together with Perugino and Pinturicchio, mentioned by Vasari who, among other things, writes that "he portrayed his figures’ heads from life and they seem to come alive". Nicolò Liberatore was born in Foligno around 1430 into a well-to-do family of apothecaries which he soon left to devote himself to his passion for painting. The pseudonym "Alunno" is attributed to him by Vasari, who misinterprets an inscription the artist placed on the predella of the polyptych of the Nativity (1492) which reads “Alumnus Fulginie”, or raised a citizen of Foligno, and which Vasari mistakenly thinks to be a nickname. On the base of the statue there are two medallions with the effigies of Raphael and Perugino.
