Nicolás of Piérola (1839-1913) was twice the President of Peru, from 1879 to 1881 and from 1895 to 1899.

Nicolás de Piérola was born in Arequipa and research indicates he received his early education there. From 1868 to 1871 he became Finance Minister under José Balta, signing with a French company the controversial contract "Hires Dreyfus," which granted the Dreyfus house of Paris the monopoly of the peruvian guano exportations. Some time later he was accused of misappropriating funds and was exiled to Bolivia and Chile. From 1874 to 1877 he intended to overthrow the established governments of Peru by unsuccessfully stirring up revolutions.

He was finally allowed to come back to Peru in 1879, taking advantage of the War of the Pacific (1879 – 1883) with Chile. During the course of these events, Piérola took advantage of president Mariano Ignacio Prado's absence and he launched a successful coup d'etat, taking full power and declaring himself Peru's commander-in-chief. Soon after, the Chilean occupation of Lima in 1881 was declared a victory, only to the dismay of Piérola which led him to submit his resignation as Peru's leader. This was not the end of Piérola, however, as he would prove himself president of Peru years later as the leader of the Democratic Party of Peru, which he founded in 1882.

In 1894, after allying his party with the Civil Party of Peru to organize guerillas with fighters to occupy Lima, he ousted Andrés Avelino Cáceres and once again became president of the Peru in 1895. His second term was successfully completed in 1899 and was marked with the reconstruction of devastated Peru by initiating fiscal, military, religious, and civil reforms.

|- style="text-align: center;" | width="30%" |Preceded by:
Andrés Avelino Cáceres | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |President of Peru
1895–1899 | width="30%" |Succeeded by:
Eduardo Lopez de Romaña

See also

• Politics of Peru
• List of Presidents of Peru