Modern accounting is impossible to imagine without the principle of double entry. For the first time such an accounting method was used and introduced into circulation by the Italian Luca Pacioli. Then, in the XV century, the term "accountant" came into use. For a long time no one knew about the explorations of the Italian author - his name was firmly forgotten for the time being.
Childhood and adolescence by Luca Pacioli
Luca Pacioli was born in the Italian city of Borgo San Sepolcro in 1445. From an early age he helped a local merchant keep business records. At the same time, Pacioli studied at the workshop of mathematician and artist Piero della Francesca.
There is evidence that Luke was the most talented student of the master. Among those with whom Pacioli had a friendship was Leon Batista Alberti - writer, architect, musician, scientist. With him, Luca met in the house of Federico de Montefeltro - a connoisseur of art and science.
At the age of nineteen, Luke moved to Venice. Here he got a job as an assistant to a wealthy merchant. In the evenings, Pacioli studied with merchant children, teaching them the basics of bookkeeping. In 1470, Luke compiled a textbook on commercial grammar for them - this was his first book. It is not known whether this work was published.
Studying with the three sons of the merchant Rompisani, Luke finds time to learn himself. But he was not attracted to the merchant business, but to the mathematical sciences. At one time, Pacioli attended public lectures by the famous mathematician Bragadino in those years.
As a result, Pacioli leaves Venice and moves to Rome. Here he meets the head of the family, della Rover, who held a high post in the Franciscan order.
The work of Luca Pacioli
In 1472, Pacioli took a vow of poverty according to the custom of the Franciscans and returned to his homeland. A monastic vow implied poverty, obedience, and chastity. Passing to monasticism, Pacioli found what he himself believed he needed to go deeper into pure science.
Becoming a Franciscan, Pacioli gets the opportunity to make a career as a professor. Doors open to the scientist, closed to many others. In 1477, Luca became a professor at the University of Perugia, where they give their lectures in mathematics. Some manuscripts of his abstracts are currently kept in the Vatican Library.
In these years, Pacioli began work on a book on the basics of arithmetic and geometry. It included a treatise on accounts and records.
In November 1494, the book was published and almost immediately made the author famous. Two years later, Pacioli was invited to give lectures in Milan, and then in Bologna. Here the scientist meets Leonardo da Vinci, who for some time even left his work on geometry and began to work on illustrations for the next book of Pacioli.
From 1490 to 1493, Pacioli lives in Padua and Naples. This was followed by a period of the so-called Italian wars, in which other European countries were drawn. Interest in the sciences began to fade. And almost no one cared about commerce and related accounting. Over the following centuries, none of the European authors created anything truly valuable in this area. The interest in accounts, which reflected profit and loss, re-emerged by the beginning of the 19th century: this was demanded by the development of commodity-money relations and the bourgeois system.
In 1508, Pacioli's book Divine Proportion was published. The author included her conversations with Leonardo da Vinci. Subsequently, Luke wrote several more works, including a study on the chess game. However, during the life of the author, these works were not published.
How did Luca Pacioli spend the last years of his life? Historians still know almost nothing about this. The medieval mathematician, who became a popularizer of bookkeeping, passed away on June 19, 1517. The exact date of his death was established only in the last century, this was done by Japanese researchers. They managed to find a record of the death of the scientist in the books of the monastery of the Holy Cross, located in Florence.
Facts and conjectures
By the beginning of XIX about Luca Pacioli and his research almost forgotten. However, in 1869, his treatise was found that narrated accounts and records. Some considered this work a fake. Others accused Pacioli of unscrupulously using earlier works of other authors in his composition.
The Russian historian Golenishchev-Kutuzov argued that the first double recording was described by Benedetto Kotrulli in 1458, but this work was published only a century later.
One way or another, but Italy is considered the birthplace of the modern accounting method. This principle was used by Italian merchants at the beginning of the XIV century, and some elements of double entry date back to the XIII century.
However, the term "accountant", as researchers believe, appeared for the first time in Germany in 1498. This happened a few years after the publication of the work of Luca Pacioli.
