Comments on some obscure or ambiguous points of the Treatise De Computis et Scripturis by Luca Pacioli

Accounting Historians Journal, The, Jun 1994 by Hernandez-Esteve, Esteban

In Chapter 15, Pacioli insists that accounts should be entered in the proper place (suo condecente luoco), without prejudice when two or three accounts may be recorded in the same folio, if there is sufficient place. In Chapter 28, he makes: clear what is meant by proper place when explaining how accounts are carried forward to a new folio: "E questo medesimo modo observarai in tutte partite che havesse a reportare avanti, incatinandole al modo ditto e senca intervallo alcuno, pero che sempre le partite si vobliano ponere come nascano de luogo sito di e milesimo, acio nisum te possi caluniare," i.e., "You will do the same with all the accounts you will have to carry forward to a new folio, linking them as explained, without leaving any blank between them and the previous ones, because accounts should always be placed in the proper place, following the same order in which they were originated, by their day and by their year, so that nobody may calumniate you."

Likewise, in Chapter 15, it is mentioned that Ledger entries referred to accounts that only concern the books' owner requires less explanations than other accounts. On the contrary, in the case of entries on which account is to be rendered, all the required information should be recorded, although it will always be possible to find more details in the Journal. This differentiation of accounts that only concern the books' owner, that is of "quelle che solo a te sapartengano," such as merchandise expenses, household expenses, income and expenditure, unusual expenses, etc., is also found in Chapter 34 when explaining how to close the old Ledger and open he new one. Some authors have found in this differentiation of accounts and in the greater accounting accuracy to be applied in the case of accounts affecting third parties a supporting argument to the theory that the concept of account and even double-entry bookkeeping developed from the need for rendering accounts. Pierre Jouanique, in particular, mentions these passages to draw the attention to the fact that Pacioli distinguished between two types of accounts: those on which account was to be rendered to somebody and hose on which account was only to be rendered to oneself. Thus he concludes that "le compte est quelque chose dont on rend compte," i.e., "the account is anything on which account is rendered" [Jouanique, 1987].

At the beginning of Chapter 17, Pacioli provides a few examples of banks or deposit entities which have not always been interpreted well by translators. The first entity mentioned is the Loan House of Venice which was sufficiently known and was correctly interpreted. However, he adds: "in firenca, el mote dele dote in genoa li lochi, " references which have generally no been well understood.(31) In the first case, Pacioli refers to the Dowry Fund of Florence that has recently been studied in depth by Julius Kirshner and Anthony Molho.(32) In the case of Genoa, our author refers to the Casa or Officium Sancti Georgii, a well-known municipal public bank, created in 1408, that was one of the first in Europe after the Taula de Canvis i Comun Diposits of Barcelona, established in 1401, and the Taula de Canvis i Comun Diposits of Valencia, created in 1407. The luoghi or loca were standard bonds whose face value was 100 liras. These bonds, which all bore the same interest rate, were introduced in 1407 as a result of the drastic reform of the Genoese municipal finance undertaken that year to reconvert and unify public debt and put an end to the countless debts and loans of all types incurred by the town council. The bonds' owners grouped together, forming the aforementioned municipal bank [Felloni, 1991, p. 225-246].