[BIRDS CHIRPING]
[BELLS RINGING]
It was a time like no other.
A time when human vision changed focus.
[CHANTING]
And the world was viewed from new perspectives.
From out of the dark ages came enlightenment.
From out of the darkness-- light, color, dimension, depth,
invention.
It was a time when the writer lent words to the scientist;
the mathematician gave proportion to the artist.
It was the Renaissance-- the rebirth--
a time when science fueled art.
And art launched the imagination.
And behind it all, were the Renaissance men-- many
well known; others, unsung heroes
who still touch our lives more than 500 years later-- unsung
heroes like Luca Pacioli.
Most of us don't know who he is.
But all of us depend on what he's given us.
He's the father of accounting as we know it.
The unsung hero of the Renaissance.
And this is his story.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CHURCH BELLS ]
To understand who Luca Pacioli is,
understand where he came from-- here, where his life began over
500 years ago, in the Italian province of Tuscany,
in the small quiet town of Sansepolcro.
Today, there are adding machines in Sansepolcro,
fax machines, computers.
But back in 1445 when Luca Bartolomeo Pacioli
was born here, accounting was neither an art nor a science.
But Pacioli's destiny was to make it both.
As a child, Luca Pacioli played on these same cobblestone
streets that we walk on today-- perhaps right here, where
this plaque now honors him.
[ROOSTER CROWING]
His family was poor, his future predictably
unpromising-- until the boy grew into a young man, determined
to redirect his life.
Little did he know-- did anyone know--
that this young man would one day alter
the course of global economic history.
The cultural renaissance of Luca Pacioli's time
was fueled by an economic renaissance.
Business was booming.
And this allowed the arts to flourish.
Luca saw this connection and realizes
if the two were to be taken beyond Renaissance Italy,
that the mechanisms of commerce had
to be put to paper, taken to Europe,
taken to the rest of the world.
This was Luca's Pacioli's contribution.
Luca Pacioli was an important figure in the Renaissance,
and his life and work underlines the essential
inter-relationship between art, business, and science
of his time.
Without this relationship, the Renaissance
could not have taken place.
The success of the personal computer industry and Microsoft
is based on the spreadsheet.
And the spreadsheet is a direct evolution
of the double-entry system, published by Luca Pacioli.
At the time of Pacioli's youth, it
was uncommon for anyone but the wealthy or the noble
to continue their education beyond the age of 16.
So Pacioli did what was expected of him, but not for long.
In the Franciscan monastery in Sansepolcro,
he took his religious and mercantile training
from the friars.
Then he was apprenticed to a local businessman,
as most young men were.
And that's when Pacioli decided to take a different path, one
that brought him closer to the subject he loved-- mathematics.
I've been interested in the science and theology
of mathematics for as long as I can remember.
It was this interest that lead Pacioli
to abandon his apprenticeship and take
a bold step in a new direction, a step that would change
his life and work forever.
Pacioli was invited to study with the renowned early
Renaissance painter, Piero della Francesca,
right here in Sansepolcro.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Piero was more than 25 years older than Pacioli.
Yet he saw great promise in the boy.
And Pacioli saw his mentor as one
who could unlock doors of knowledge and experience
that might otherwise stay closed to him.
To get on in life, make your friends among older persons,
for only they are in value of placing you
among people of consequence.
Piero della Francesca was a Latin scholar, a poet,
and a cosmographer.
He wrote books on perspective and form,
dabbled in architecture.
And his paintings-- his frescoes--
were a marvel of tone and mathematics,
with heads and limbs as variations of geometric
shapes-- cones, spheres, cylinders.
A brilliant mathematician, Francesca
shared all he knew about the art of the science
with the young Luca Pacioli.
Piero introduced Pacioli to his work and to his friends.
Grazie.
Salute.
That's how one learned in Pacioli's time.
Together, the teacher and his student
traveled over the rugged Appennine Mountains
to the spectacular library of Duke Federico of Urbino.
Pacioli was as impressed by his travels to the library
as he was by the more than 4,000 books in it.
And the friendship he developed with the Duke's son,
Guidobaldo, was one that prompted
Pacioli to later dedicate his most famous treatise
to the young duke.
It was Piero della Francesca, the king of painting,
who introduced me to Federico, Duke of Urbino;
his son, Guidobaldo; and their magnificent library.
And it was to Piero that I first developed the idea
to bring mathematics out of the library
and to put it into practical daily use.
Exchanging ideas, sharing information,
and making introductions is what shaped
the lives of the Renaissance men, including Pacioli.
The next important introduction Piero della Francesca
gave young Luca Pacioli was to the early Renaissance writer
and architect, Leon Battista.
Alberti-- a new mentor and teacher,
who opened yet another door for Pacioli,
a door that led out of Sansepolcro,
to the glory of Venice.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Leon Battista Alberti was a writer and an architect,
an artist and a scientist, author
of famous treatises on sculpture, painting,
and architecture.
Alberti believed in the religious significance
of numerical ratios.
What he called the "God-given validity of mathematically
determined proportions," which he applied to his own work,
proportions that shaped the columns, arches,
foundations of the Renaissance.
It was Leon Battista Alberti that
arranged for Pacioli's first teaching assignment,
over there on the island of Guidecca,
in the home of a wealthy Venetian businessman, Ser
Antonio de Rompiasi, where the young Pacioli was to tutor
the three Rompiasi boys.
Within their paternal and fraternal shadow,
I found shelter in their house.
In Venice, Pacioli divided his time
between tutoring the [? Rompiasis ?],
teaching, and studying mathematics with a scholar
Domenico Bragadino.
He also visited a university environment
for the first time, the university of Padua.
All the influences in his life now
came together as the 20-year-old Pacioli
wrote his first manuscript on algebra,
dedicated to his first students in Venice, the Rompiasi
brothers.
And when the elder Rompiasi died in 1470,
Pacioli left Venice to rejoin his aging mentor, Leon Battista
Alberti.
The two soon moved to Rome, where Alberti introduced
his young protege to a most important man-- Pope Paul
II, who encouraged Luca Paciolo to take the cloth.
And Alberti also encouraged Pacioli to take his work
to the workplace.
Leon Battista Alberti urged me to bring my work to more people
by writing in Italian-- to apply my mathematical concepts
and techniques to the marketplace,
to write in the more common Italian
so every man can understand what is in the mathematician's mind.
Per te, padre.
Grazie.
Prego.
And so the boy Pacioli grew into a man with a strong desire
to teach and the belief that mathematics, art,
and architecture are visible examples of divine proportion,
divinely inspired.
[CHANTING]
And when his friend, Leon Battista Alberti, died in 1472,
Pacioli took the Pope's suggestion
and took the vows of the Franciscan order.
So Luca Pacioli, the mathematician, became a monk.
It is the purpose of every merchant
to make an honest and a legitimate profit
for his living.
And, wherefore, they must begin will
their transactions in the name of God,
and put his holy name on every account.
"A sue laude et gloria," for the praise and the glory of God.
In 1475, Pacioli, the monk and the mathematician,
became the teacher and the scholar,
the first lecturer to hold a chair in mathematics
at the University in Perugia.
Pacioli stressed again and again the importance
of putting theory to practical use,
a principle that would guide his life and his teachings.
Pacioli's emphasis on the application of theory
made him unique among his peers.
Travelling and teaching for the next two decades,
Pacioli became the 15th century equivalent of a full professor.
While delivering lectures, meeting with popes,
writing manuscripts, and taking time out
to pose for portraits like Piero della Francesca's "The Madonna
of the Egg."
By the time he was 49 years old, Pacioli-- the mathematician,
monk, teacher, scholar, and author--
would also become a celebrity.
With the publication of his Summa,
Pacioli's place as a major intellectual figure
of the Renaissance was guaranteed.
The Summa was so important, it was
one of the first documents chosen
for printing here in Venice by the new Gutenberg Press.
Today, nearly five centuries later,
the Gutenberg-printed Summa retains its color, texture,
and clarity.
Its full title speaks of a book about mathematics--
the collected knowledge of arithmetic, geometry,
proportions, and proportionality.
But just one small section within the book
is what changed the future of business and economics forever.
It's the section that earned Pacioli the title,
father of accounting.
Through the Summa, Pacioli became the catalyst
that launched the past into the future,
lifting the curtain on the economics of the dark age
and lighting the way to unprecedented economic growth
and change.
What Pacioli explains in the Summa
is how to use double-entry accounting to record business
transactions.
The Venetian or double-entry method
may seem commonplace today.
But when Pacioli presented it, it was state of the art.
Assets equal liabilities plus owner's equity--
a simple equation and yet the essence
of double-entry accounting.
Carried and copied through the centuries,
the Summa was translated into Dutch, German, French,
English, and Russian.
The Summa has been a textbook for teachers,
a manual for merchants.
It's been hailed as a masterpiece
by students of business, geometry, and proportion,
and considered by some to be the most widely
read mathematical work in all of Italy--
but not just for the mathematics of contains.
For the Summa is also a compendium
of common business sense.
From my association with merchants in various places,
I have learned three things necessary to make
a merchant successful.
The first and most important is cash.
But when merchants do not possess cash,
they resort to the use of credit--
doing business on the basis of good faith.
Second, it is necessary for a merchant
to be a ready mathematician.
And, third, a merchant must be a good bookkeeper--
to keep his affairs in an orderly way,
because where there is no order, there is confusion.
After the Summa was published, one artist
was so impressed by it, he requested
Pacioli tutor him in mathematics and proportion
here at the Court of Milan.
That artist was Leonardo da Vinci.
And during the time Leonardo and Pacioli were together,
two works of art became masterpieces.
One of those was De Divina Proportione--
of divine proportions-- the second major treatise
on mathematics written by Luca Pacioli
and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci.
The order and figure of this book,
together with all the other bodies,
are from the hand of our compatriot, Leonardo da
Vinci of Florence, whose designs and figures
no man could ever surpass.
The second masterpiece completed during Leonardo and Pacioli's
collaboration was a mural painted
on the north wall of the refectory of Santa Maria della
Grazie, a Dominican cloister here in Milan.
It was to become the most famous painting of the 15th century,
The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, a work that embellished
the advances in perspective and proportion
Pacioli wrote about in his Summa, advances
that he shared with Leonardo.
Pacioli's name is mentioned frequently in Leonardo's notes.
While living in Milan, here in the monastery of San
Simpliciano, Pacioli had a substantial influence
on the divine geometry Leonardo was known for, especially
in The Last Supper.
The relationship between Leonardo and Pacioli,
which lasted seven years, was a symbiotic one, a give and take.
Pacioli shared Piero della Francesca's knowledge
of perspective with Leonardo, perhaps even
helping Leonardo make the transition to architecture.
And Leonardo shared his ability with Pacioli ,
illustrating Of Divine Proportions,
where Pacioli calculates and constructs a system
of classical Roman letters-- Pacioli's artistic vision with
help from the gifted hand of Leonardo da Vinci.
Collaboration is what the Renaissance was all
about-- exchanging ideas, sharing discoveries, melding
mathematical principles with artistic ones--
the science of art, the art of science, and accounting.
During and after his time with Leonardo da Vinci,
Pacioli continued to teach and write,
completing some 11 books on algebra, geometry, mathematics,
military strategies, chess, magic squares, card games,
and accounting.
By the 16th century, Pacioli had become
a legend in his own time.
Lecture rooms were packed wherever he spoke--
in Pisa, Florence, Venice.
In 1510, Pacioli was named director
of the Franciscan monastery in Sansepolcro.
And that's where he returned to spend
the last years of his life, among fellow friars who
weren't so pleased with their famous associate.
In 1514, the 69-year-old Pacioli was called away
from Sansepolcro by Pope Leo X to teach mathematics
at the University of Rome.
The pope intended to create a faculty that
was second to none.
That's why he called Pacioli.
But whether Pacioli was ever to fulfill his assignment
is unknown, because there is no record of Pacioli ever
having made it to the university or to Rome.
Pacioli may have spent his final days in Sansepolcro,
where he died in 1517.
Not much is known about Pacioli's death.
Some say he's buried here beneath the old church of San
Giovanni.
What is known is his life and the contributions
he's made to the quality of ours.
The Venetian method of accounting,
today called double-entry, is one
of the most enduring intellectual creations
in post-Renaissance history.
An ingenious system that gives the world
a way to record and summarize commercial activity.
The double-entry system of accounts described
in Pacioli's Summa 500 years ago is still
being used across the globe today.
The Summa speaks to every businessman, every accountant,
every scholar, student, and merchant.
It transcends cultures and countries, languages,
ideologies, generations.
The 15th century precepts put forth in Pacioli's writings
can be found virtually unchanged in today's
corporate annual reports, business books, spreadsheets,
financial statements, cash-flow projections, cost analysis.
Modern economic history began with the Renaissance and Luca
Pacioli, who was the first to publish
the method for recording, summarizing, and conveying
that economic history.
He was the first to take accounting into account.
Economic growth and financial stability
depend on understandable, reliable accounting practices.
It is believed that without widespread adoption
of the accounting principles set forth in the Summa,
many of the joint trade ventures to the New World and Far East
would have run aground.
In the case of finding a more direct water route to India,
it is generally believed an accountant convinced
Queen Isabella to invest in an exploratory venture that
ultimately reached the shores of North America.
Aboard one of those ships was a gentleman named Columbus,
and the accountant the queen insisted accompany the voyage
to ensure a proper accounting of her investment.
Who was Luca Pacioli?
He was a great man, who walked and worked
with other great men-- Renaissance men like Leonardo
da Vinci, Leon Battista Alberti, Frederico, duke of Urbino,
Piero della Francesca.
Luca Pacioli exchanged and published
information that generated new thought
and broadened the world's perspective.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Yet Pacioli's greatest masterpiece
was not made of stone, paint, or marble.
It was an idea, a vision, an equation,
that found its way to ink and parchment and the world.
He was a poor child who lived a life
rich with invention and growth.
He was a mathematician and a monk, an accountant
and an artist, who crossed disciplines and mountains
in pursuit of knowledge.
He wrote, worshipped, wandered, and wondered,
about the world around him.
And he gave that world a financial model,
the tools to build a solid economic foundation-- a future.
Who was Luca Pacioli?
He was the unsung hero of the Renaissance.
And 500 years after he died, he still teaches us.
He still touches our lives.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
May my teachings be accessible to everyone,
so our world, through the instrument of language,
will be enriched, for the praise and glory of God.
[MUSIC PLAYING]