Luca Pacioli | Father of Accounting

pacioli01 Luca Pacioli’s manuscripts and ideas changed the way the world worked in his lifetime and they continue to have a bearing on life even today.

Luca Pacioli was probably born in 1445 in Sansepolcro, Tuscany. His family was poor and Pacioli’s future appeared unpromising. He entered a Franciscan monastery in Sansepolcro and was apprenticed to local businesses. However, he soon gave up his apprenticeship because, even as a young man, Pacioli loved mathematics. He dedicated his life to working as a scholar in the science.

Pacioli was a friend of the artist Piero della Francesca, one of the first great writers on the subject of perspective. Della Francesca and Pacioli traveled through the Apennine range of mountains, where Francesca gave Pacioli access to Frederick’s library, with Urbino’s approval. The collection of 4,000 books enabled Pacioli to increase his knowledge of mathematics.

Della Francesca also introduced Pacioli to Leone Battista Alberti, who became Pacioli’s new mentor. Alberti took Pacioli to Venice and got him a job as the private teacher of millionaire merchant Antonio de Reimpose’s three children. During this time, in 1470, at the age of 25, Pacioli produced his first manuscript. The book is about algebra and was dedicated to the young people of his era.

 

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Jacopo de' Barbari - Ritratto di Frà en Luca Pacioli

Alberti also introduced Pacioli to Pope Paul II, who encouraged him to become a friar and to commit his life to God. After Alberti died in 1472, Pacioli acted on Pope Paul II’s advice and took minor Franciscan vows. In 1475 Pacioli started work as a professor in Perugia University, where he remained for six years. He was the first lecturer to hold a debate at the university on mathematics. Pacioli emphasized the importance of applying theory to practical use and this emphasis made him unique among his fellowmen.

During his stay at the University of Perugia Pacioli wrote his second manuscript, dedicated to “the young people of Perugia”. After 1481 Pacioli traveled across Italy and to some places beyond Italy’s borders until, in 1486, the Franciscans called him back to Perugia University. Pacioli then started to use the title “Magister”, or Great Master, which is the equivalent of a full-time professor today.

The year 1494 is the only year for which there is a totally accurate record of Pacioli’s activities. In that year, at the age of 49, Pacioli published his famous book, Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita, a collection of knowledge about arithmetic, geometry and proportion. Pacioli wrote Summa in an effort to counteract the poor state of mathematics teaching. A section of the book made Pacioli famous. The section: Particularis de Computis et Scripturis,is a treatise on accounting. Pacioli was the first person to describe double entry accounting system, also known as the Venetian Method.

The Summa turned Pacioli into a celebrity and secured him a place in history as “The Father of Accounting”. The Summa was possibly the most read mathematics book in the whole of Italy and one of the first books printed on Gutenberg’s press.


 

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Pacioli’s important manuscript made him famous immediately and he was invited to Milan to teach mathematics in the court of Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.

One of his pupils would be Leonardo Da Vinci. During the seven years they spent together Pacioli and Da Vinci helped each other create two masterpieces that would stand the test of time. Da Vinci illustrated Pacioli’s subsequent manuscript, De Divina Proportione (On the Divine Proportion), which was second in importance.

Pacioli taught Da Vinci perspective and proportion and this knowledge allowed Da Vinci to create one of his greatest masterpieces, the mural on the north wall of the church of Santa Maria da Graça Dominica. This mural is the XV century’s most famous portrait and is known as “The Last Supper”.

The geometry that Pacioli taught Da Vinci is seen in any number of the latter’s later works and he mentions Pacioli many times in his notes. In the years that they worked together Pacioli continued to teach and write.

In 1509 he published De Divina Proportione, as well as a work about Euclid in Venice. That same year Pacioli gave an important conference about “ratios and proportionality”, which stressed the link of proportion to religion, medicine, law, configuration, grammar, printing, sculpture, music and all the liberal arts.

In 1510 Pacioli was named head of the Franciscan monastery of Sansepolcro. In 1514 Pope Leo X called Pacioli to the papacy in Rome to make him a teacher there. Historians are not sure what happened to Pacioli subsequently, although they’re sure he was not a teacher in Rome. Pacioli died in the monastery in Sansepolcro, probably on June 19, 1517.