Perugia Culture

Painting

Perugia is where Umbrian painting happened, and the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria in the Palazzo dei Priori is the collection. It is open every day, 8:30 to 19:30, with no weekly closing day — rare for an Italian state museum and worth building a plan around. Entry is €10, or €2 for EU citizens aged 18 to 25.

The central figure is Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino (1450–1523), who ran a workshop here that trained Raphael. His best surviving room is not in the gallery but next door: the Nobile Collegio del Cambio, the money-changers' guild hall, frescoed by him between 1498 and 1500 and still furnished. It is one of the few places in Italy where a complete Renaissance interior survives with its benches, its panelling and its programme intact.

Sculpture in a public square

The Fontana Maggiore in Piazza IV Novembre was designed by Fra Bevignate and sculpted by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano. It is a public fountain carrying a carved encyclopaedia — the months, the liberal arts, biblical and Roman history, the city's own legends — set between the cathedral and the town hall, which is exactly where a medieval commune would put a statement of what it knew.

Two universities

The University of Perugia was founded in 1308. The University for Foreigners teaches Italian language and culture to students from across the world. Between them they are why the historic centre has a resident evening population and not just a day one.

Chocolate, seriously

The Perugina works at San Sisto is the largest of Nestlé's nine Italian plants, and Baci — the hazelnut chocolates wrapped with a love note — are made there. Eurochocolate fills the historic centre for ten days each November — the 2026 edition is the 32nd, themed Fate Dolci — and the Città del Cioccolato museum runs year-round. This is industry and civic identity at the same time, which is not a contradiction here.

Music

Umbria Jazz has run since 1973. The main edition takes the city in July, with concerts in the Arena, the theatres and the squares; a winter edition runs over New Year. It is the largest jazz festival in Italy and the reason Perugia is known to people who have never thought about Umbrian painting.