Somma di arithmetica, etc. (1494) — Gallery of Early Printed Books

Title and table of contents — Opening leaf "Sũma de Arithmetica Geometria Proportioni e Proportionalita," with the "Continentia de tutta lopera" — a long table of contents enumerating the topics of the work, from numbering and the Euclidean proportions to mercantile rules, partnerships, and the bookkeeping double of Venice (fol. [*1]r).

Dedicatory opening with woodcut border — The decorated opening of the text, set within an interlace woodcut border with a historiated initial, addressing Guidobaldo da Montefeltro ("Aquantita Magnanimo Duca") — the start of the dedication and Distinctio prima (fol. a1r).

De computis et scripturis — From the bookkeeping treatise "Distinctio nona, Tractatus XI, De scripturis," the first printed exposition of double-entry accounting: here the model inventory ("Forma de cizar a uno suo libro ne lo Inventario seguente"), opening with a Venetian merchant's tally of cash, plate, jewels, cloth and property (fol. 199, original foliation).

Geometry: regular solids — A page of the geometry part, "Distinctio octava, De corporibus regularibus," with a column of woodcut diagrams of triangular-faced solids (pyramids and tetrahedra) keyed by letters to the surrounding worked calculations (fol. 72, geometry foliation).

1 / 4

Luca Pacioli's vast vernacular compendium of arithmetic, algebra, geometry and proportion, dedicated to Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. It gathered the practical mathematics of the Italian merchant tradition into one printed encyclopaedia. Its treatise "De computis et scripturis" (Distinctio IX, Tractatus XI) is the first printed account of Venetian double-entry bookkeeping, which earned Pacioli the title "father of accounting." Printed at Venice by Paganinus de Paganinis in 1494.

Somma di arithmetica, etc.

Details

Facsimiles

Images

References