Pacioli Publishes Summa de Arithmetica

1494

The Franciscan mathematician, friend of Leonardo, published a vernacular Italian treatise on arithmetic, geometry, and what he called the 'Venetian method' of double-entry bookkeeping. Commerce and mathematics fused in print. European capitalism acquired its grammar, and accountants their patron saint, on the Rialto. His exposition of the Venetian method of double-entry bookkeeping gave commercial mathematics its foundational textbook.