Luca Pacioli

(1447 - 1517)

A Franciscan monk born in Tuscany, Luca Pacioli is known as the “Father of Accounting” for his work on double-entry bookkeeping. His first published work was a massive mathematics textbook, which he wrote while working as a teacher in Perugia. He was later invited to the Milanese court of Ludovico Sforza, where he met Leonardo da Vinci; the two became close friends and collaborators, with Pacioli tutoring the artist in mathematics and Leonardo providing illustrations for Pacioli’s On the Divine Proportion.