Luca Pacioli: The Father of Accounting Education

Abstract

Luca Pacioli, was a Franciscan friar born in Borgo San Sepolcro in what is now Northern Italy in 1446 or 1447. It is believed that he died in the same town on 19 June 1517. He is best remembered for his 615-page mathematical compendium, Summa de Arithmetica Geometria Proportioni et Proportionalità, published in 1494; and for his friendship with Leonardo da Vinci. Many accountants perceive his greatest contribution as being the 27-page treatise on double-entry bookkeeping and business contained within his Summa. Today, we still teach doubl-entry bookkeeping following the principles set down by Pacioli, and all manual and computerized accounting systems owe much of their processing logic to the principles and processes he described. However, there is another aspect to this treatise that has been largely overlooked: in it, Pacioli set down not only the principles of double entry bookkeeping but also presented an approach to teaching the subject that is unique and largely forgotten. This paper considers Pacioli's pedagogic approach within the educational environment in which he worked. It concludes that Luca Pacioli was a man of pedagogic insight and expertise who knew how to pitch his presentation so as to engage his students and maximize their likelihood of learning and understanding the material he presented using techniques that, even today, would be considered innovative. In doing so, he brings a subject (double entry bookkeeping) to life that is in sharp contrast to the abstract and often meaningless (in terms of context) way in which it is often taught today.

Keywords:

• Pacioli
• double-entry bookkeeping
• Summa Arithmetica
• pedagogy
• humanism
• abbaco
• business education
• cognitive apprenticeship

Notes

A five-page overview of bookkeeping was included in a manuscript written in Naples in 1458 by the Ragusan (Croatian), Benedetto Cotrugli, but it was not published until 1573 (Melis, 1950, p. 597; Tucci, 1990; Jouanique, 1996).

It is for this reason that Pacioli is generally recognized as being the first person after Fibonaci to have developed the subject of algebra and to have thus paved the way for the development of that subject in the sixteenth century.

Grendler (1989) identifies a few abbaco schools where accounting was part of the curriculum, including one of 143 pupils in Venice, three times the average enrolment for the time; and distinguishes between composite abbaco schools that included accounting in the curriculum and accounting schools specializing solely in the ledger and in bookkeeping.

We do not know whether or not Pacioli ever actually taught double entry bookkeeping. However, circumstantial evidence suggests that he did teach the subject: he spent six years working for a merchant in Venice while employed as guardian of the merchant's three sons between 1464 and 1470. It is inconceivable that he did so without learning bookkeeping and not unlikely that he taught the subject to the merchant's sons. Pacioli was their tutor and, while mainly teaching them business arithmetic and algebra, would also have covered all other subjects relevant to their father's business.

See the Appendix for examples from Pacioli's treatise of his contextualization to business.

Indicating where in the treatise an item was previously discussed.

Indicating where later in the treatise an item will be discussed.

Indicating that an item will be discussed later.

Compound journal entries—those involving more than one debit or credit—were used in Italy in the mid-fifteeth century (Peragallo, 1983) suggesting that Pacioli's decision not to include any in his treatise was most likely pedagogically-inspired. Similarly, his failure to mention the use of accounting adjustments, such as depreciation and prepayments, which were in use in Italy a century earlier (Macve, 1996) was likely to have been for reasons of pedagogy.

The English word for this is ‘thing’.