In 1923, the Pegna-Bonmartini workshops at Sestri Ponente in Genoa, Italy, were constructing a fighter aircraft prototype designed by Ing Giovanni Pegna around the smallest airframe that could accommodate the 224-kilowatt (300-horsepower) Hispano-Suiza HS 42 eight-cylinder water-cooled engine.

[1] The P.2 was an aerodynamically clean, single-seat, low-wing, cantilever monoplane of very advanced design for the time with either a monocoque[2] or semi-monocoque fuselage and fixed landing gear.

[4] It had two radiators, one mounted on each side of the fuselage, forward of the open cockpit.

Piaggio built two P.2 prototypes and entered the P.2 in the 1923 Italian official fighter contest.

However, the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Royal Air Force) purchased one of the prototypes for evaluation, taking delivery of it on 23 March 1924.