Monk Fra Luca Pacioli may be unknown to you if you are not in the field of accounting but to every accountant, accounting students, and aspiring accountants, Luca Pacioli is the reason why the accounting course exists today.
Luca is sometimes called Luca Di Borgo in recognition of his place of birth–Sansepolcro, formerly Borgo Santo Sepolcro. A town located in the eastern part of Tuscany.
He is generally acknowledged as “Father of Accounting and Bookkeeping”, and as accountants or enthusiasts of the accounting profession, it is important that we familiarize ourselves with some facts about the legendary mathematician.
Top 16 Luca Pacioli’s Fact You Don’t Know
- Luca Pacioli’s publication in 1494, titled Summa de Arithmetica, Geometric, Proportoni et Pproportionalita meaning “Everything About Arithmetic, Geometry, and Proportion” is the first known publication on the double-entry system and it’s responsible for its widespread to Europe and the rest of the world.
It must, however, be noted that only a chapter dealt with the double-entry system in this book.
- Bookkeeping is a section out of the 5 sections in Summa de Arithmetica, Geometric, Proportoni et Pproportionalita.
- Due to the popularity of the chapter on the double-entry system. Exactly ten years after his first book. Luca Pacioli wrote another book, titled “The Perfect School of Merchants”
- Pacioli received abbaco education in his childhood, instead of his native Latin language. This education was in the vernacular, and he focused on the knowledge required of merchants with special emphasis on mathematics.
- As a child, Luca Pacioli didn’t live with his family rather he lived with the Befolci family in Sansepolcro.
- Luca Pacioli wrote an unpublished treatise on chess, De ludo scachorum (On the Game of Chess). A surviving manuscript was found in 2006 in the library of Count Guglielmo Coronini-Cronberg om Gorizia
- He moved to Venice where he assumed the role of teaching mathematics to the Rapiazi boys in the University of Padua while continuing his own education.
- He wrote his first book while he was in Venice, a disquisition on arithmetic for the boys he was teaching.
- Two years after teaching as a private tutor in Perugia, Luca Pacioli became the first person to assume the position of chair of mathematics in 1477.
- After the publication of his first book, “Summa de Arithmetica, Geometric, Proportoni et Pproportionalita” Luca Fra Pacioli accepted the invitation of Duke Ludovico Sforza to visit Milan where he taught mathematics to, lived and collaborated with Leonardo Davinci.
- Some believe that the collaboration between Luca Pacioli and Leonardo Davinci birthed Davinci’s Last supper while Davinci also helped Luca Pacioli illustrate his works. However, the relationship was shortlived as they were both driven out of Milan in 1499 when the French took over and exiled the Duke.
- Luca Pacioli entered into the Franciscan order, sometimes in the early 1470s. This explains why he was referred to as Fra.
- Luca Pacioli acquired knowledge in diverse technical fields like Medicine, Religion, Business, Military, Science, Music, Art, Law, and Language.
- He also wrote a treatise on magic, and he is generally acclaimed as the first guide to perform card tricks and just like his treatise on chess. The disquisition was unpublished during his life as it was abandoned in Bologna University’s archives.
- Pacioli is responsible for the translation of the Elements of Euclid and he also wrote a book on the application of proportion in Architecture. This book played a huge role in the explanation of perspectives in painting.
- Luca Pacioli died at the age of 70 in an unknown place. A larger majority of researchers, however, opined that he died in his birthplace⎼⎼Sansepolcro sometimes in 1517.
I hope you were able to familiarize yourself with more facts about Luca Fra Pacioli. The man whose great work is the foundation of Modern Day Accounting and Bookkeeping.
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