Pinturicchio, whose proper name was BERNARDINO DI BETTI, was a painter, born at Perugia, in 1454. An assistant to Perugino, he helped him with the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel at Rome, and then spent the best part of eight years (1484–92) in painting frescoes on the walls of the chapels of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. After executing two pieces in the cathedral at Orvieto he decorated the walls of what is now the Vatican library with a series of six frescoes; this occupied him six years (till 1498). On the walls of Sta Maria in Ara Cœli he illustrated the life of St Bernardino of Siena. Other frescoes by his brush adorned two churches in Spello, the Petrucci Palace at Siena, and the cathedral library in the same city, this last series illustrating the life of Pope Pius II. All these works are admirable examples of decorative art. Pinturicchio painted a few panel pictures of high merit, as Christ bearing the Cross, two Madonnas enthroned (at Perugia), Coronation of the Virgin (in the Vatican), and others at Siena, Florence, and Spello. He died at Siena, 11th December 1513.
See Life by Vermiglioli (Perugia, 1837), two monographs by Schmarsow (Stutt. 1880 and 1882), and Milanesi's ed. (Florence, 1878) of Vasari, vol. iii.