Pacioli's Lens: God, Humanism, Euclid, and the Rhetoric of Double Entry

ABSTRACT This paper investigates why, in 1494, the Franciscan friar and teacher of mathematics, Luca Pacioli, published an instructional treatise describing the system of double entry bookkeeping. In doing so, it also explores the rhetoric and foundations of double entry through the lens of Pacioli's treatise. Recent findings on Pacioli's life and works, his writings, and the medieval accounting archives are combined to identify how he was inspired by his faith and his humanist beliefs to give all merchants access to the practical mathematics and the bookkeeping they required. The paper finds that Pacioli's teaching method was inspired by Euclid, his Franciscan education, and his humanist beliefs, and that Pacioli reveals a simplicity in the then-unrecognized axiomatic foundation of double entry that has been largely overlooked. The findings represent a paradigm shift in how we perceive Pacioli, his treatise, and double entry.

Franciscan Education and Monastic Libraries: Some Documents

A strong attachment to education and scholarship very early distinguished the orders of friars established in the thirteenth century. Although Francis of Assisi had made no provision for such activities in the new religious movement which he founded, nevertheless, not long after his death in 1226 the Franciscans had already begun to show a pronounced intellectualist bent. In a sermon delivered in 1229, Odo of Châteauroux noted the influx of scholars into the Order and the prominence of the Franciscans in the Paris schools. Subsequently, some of the finest minds in Europe were converted to the Franciscan style of Christian life; and the enthusiasm and aptitude of the friars minor for teaching became very apparent — transforming them into almost a separate universitas.

Franciscan Education in French North America

The Franciscan Order was the first large agency to concern itself with the Christianization and civilization of North America. Its personnel sought to change the culture patterns, the institutions, and the ideology of the native aboriginal social order not merely by erecting chapels and churches but also by an educational policy that was vitally interested in improving the quality of individual living and implementing the ideals of a Christian democratic society.