All these characteristics had direct influence upon Perugino, but even beyond them can be seen other marks of this master's tuition. The fantastic head-dresses that are to be seen in Piero's frescoes find their counterpart in the frescoes of the Cambio; the very same scheme of composition in "The Resurrection of Christ" in the Borgo San Sepolcro Gallery is to be seen in one of Perugino's pictures; and the long vistas of arches and careful geometric proportion and the absolutely accurate drawing of arches and columns are to be equally realised in Piero's picture in the Gallery at Perugia and in Perugino's altar-piece in the Villa Albani. Even in the shape of the hand, the clear cameo-like profile of the faces, and the detail of the feathers on the angels' wings, the relationship between these painters is marked, and comparison between the frescoes at Arezzo and the paintings in the Accademia will be found to reveal these and other points of close contact.
In these early days of Perugino's life, it is therefore to the influence of Niccolò Liberatore, of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and, above all, of Piero della Francesca, that we attribute the growth of his art and the success of his later life.
One more artist he must have met in these days, as Luca Signorelli, who was some five years his senior, was probably at Arezzo with Piero della Francesca. Certain pictures of Perugino, notably the "Crucifixion," at La Calza, and the similar scene painted around a carved crucifix now at Perugia, the "Pietà" in the Accademia, and the "Love and Chastity" in Paris, betray in their vigour, hardness, and movement some of Signorelli's influence, an influence that only occasionally was to be seen in the great Umbrian master.
Morelli[C] considers that Perugino's journey to Florence after his Perugian training, of which Vasari speaks, took place in 1470, at which time Perugino would be about twenty-five years old. His name is recorded in the roll of St. Luke in 1472, and in the roll of the Physicians in 1499.
Vasari states that it was to Verrocchio that he went. Lanzi and Orsini confirm this; Morelli gravely doubts it; Resta distinctly denies it; Berenson rejects it; and certainly there is but little trace of such a tutor in Perugino's work.