Luca Pacioli

Italy 1445-1517

Luca Pacioli was a Franciscan Friar who taught at the University of Perugia and gained the Chair of Mathematics in 1477. (1) While at Perugia, Pacioli wanted his students to be able to apply the math they were learning, an uncommon tactic at the time. (4) Pacioli became a travelling mathematician in 1480, and arriving in Rome in 1487. The Pope, Sixtus IV, gave him particular privileges, causing friction between Pacioli and other Franciscans when Pacioli attempted to return to teach at his hometown, Sansepolcro. As a result, he was banned from teaching in 1491, though their stance had changed somewhat by 1493, since he was then invited to preach during Lent. (1, 2)

Pacioli wrote his first treatise on mathematics when he was nineteen, and created various other publications throughout his life. (1) His most influential work, published in 1494, was entitled The Collected Knowledge of Arithmetic, Geometry, Proportion, and Proportionality. This work was essentially an all-in one reprint of a variety of master mathematicians. Paicoli had not invented the math, merely repackaged it. (4) Still, it was a start and encouraged mathematical progress over the next decades. (2)

One particular piece of this work was of particular interest due to its effect on the field of accounting, the area which Pacioli is now most famous for.(4) Pacioli started, or at least was the first to record, the double entry bookkeeping system, the use of ledgers, and income statements. (1) The double entry system means a company would note money spent on food, for example, as negative in the general funds section, and positive in the food expense column. As long as the total amount of money doesn’t magically increase, this system helps to provide a clear indication of where money is being spent. (3) Pacioli altered the field of accounting so thoroughly he is now considered the Father of Accounting. (4)

The Collected Knowledge... was widely read and made Pacioli famous. (4) He was invited to Milan around 1496 and there met Leonardo da Vinci. The two became friends and spent the next seven years teaching each other what they knew of art and math. (4) Pacioli had learned from the painter and mathematician Piero della Francesca, an early architect of perspective in art. (2) Pacioli taught Leonardo about perspective which was then aplied in the Last Supper painting. Leonardo provided illustrations for another of Pacioli’s books, The Divine Proportion. (2, 4) The Divine Proportion was concerned with the properties of the Golden Ratio, which Paicili considered so sublime he compared to God. (5) Their friendship is fairly certain, as Da Vinci often mentioned Pacioli in his notes. (4)

Towards the end of his life, Pacioli once more returned to his hometown, and may have become abbot of the monastery there, though his four year stay ended in 1514 as he was summoned to Rome by the Pope. (4) Unfortunately, he died in 1517, before making the journey to Rome. (4) Unlike so many other mathematicians and scientists, Pacioli was actually able become famous within his own lifetime. Quite often, the merits of a scientist’s work is not appreciated until another person duplicates their findings and happens upon the former scientist at some later point. Nor has Pacioli’s work faded into obsolescence: a version of his system is still in use today. (2)

Works Referenced

1. Luca Pacioli https://famous-mathematicians.com/luca-pacioli/
2. Luca Pacioli http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Pacioli.html 
3. What is Double Entry Bookkeeping? https://www.accountingcoach.com/blog/what-is-double-entry-bookkeeping
4. Luca Pacioli: The Father of Accounting http://flynf.tripod.com/pacioli.htm 
5. The Divine Proportion by Luca Pacioli http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Divine_proportion.html