Pacioli's De scripturis in the Context of the Spread of Double entry Bookkeeping

Abstract

This paper examines and questions, in the light of the known evidences, some widely accepted ideas with respect to the use and spread of double entry during its first centuries of existence. In this regard, the author says that he does not believe that printed books and, in particular the Summa of Luca Pacioli, had a great direct effect on the diffusion of knowledge of the system and of its use. With regard to Pacioli's work, very few merchants would have known of him, or have heard of the publication of the Summa, or have been aware that it included a chapter on double entry bookkeeping. Moreover, the De scripturis section is not an effective exposition of the system. The reader's task would have been easier had the text included specimen rulings with specimen entries. The most serious deficiency of all is that Pacioli did not provide an illustrative set of account books in which the appropriate entries were entered for each of a series of transactions, and in which the end- products of the balancing and closing of the ledger were shown. Apart from that, the Summa is a large book of more than 600 large pages, of which De scripturis is only a small part. It would have been cumbersome to use for quick reference in a counting house. Although the author doubts whether Pacioli's had any or much direct effect on the spread of use of the double entry system inside or outside Italy, it certainly had a direct effect on the contents of three books published in the 1540s by an Italian, Manzoni, a Fleming, Ympyn, and an Englishman, Oldcastle. Having ruled out printed books as the main direct way of diffusion of double entry among merchants, the author wonders which were the main ways of diffusion of the new system. He means there were three ways: printed books, but in an indirect way, since he suspects that they were used mainly by teachers of the subject, and rarely used by auto-didactic merchants or bookkeepers who studied on their own; the movement of merchants, bookkeepers and apprentices from one commercial centre to another; and the activities of teachers of commercial subjects who gave private tuition. To this respect he offers some examples of these ways, giving special attention to the latter. Lastly, the paper also questions the extended belief that the double entry system was widely used in 16th century Europe. The author believes that it was possible that the new system might have been well known, but much more in the 17th century than in the 16th , and that only a few merchants outside Italy used it, most of whom were Italian or had done their apprenticeships in Italy.