Paolo Uccello (1397 – 10 December 1475), born Paolo di Dono, is an Italian painter and a mathematician who is notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art.

Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists wrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his study trying to grasp the exact vanishing point.

He uses perspective in order to create a feeling of depth in his paintings and not, as his contemporaries, to narrate different or succeeding stories.

His best known works are the three paintings representing the battle of San Romano (for a long time these were wrongly entitled the "Battle of Sant' Egidio of 1416").

Paolo works in the Late Gothic tradition, and emphasizes color and pageantry rather than the Classical realism that other artists are pioneering.

His style is best described as idiosyncratic, and he leaves no school of followers.

He has had some influence on twentieth century art (including the New Zealand painter Melvin Day) and literary criticism (e.g., in the "Vies imaginaires" by Marcel Schwob or "Uccello le poil" by Antonin Artaud).