page_title: Accounting
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Accounting / History
caption_attribution_description: English: It shows Pacioli standing behind a table and wearing the habit of a member of the Franciscan order. He draws a construction on a board, the edge of which bears the name Euclides. His left hand rests upon a page of an open book. This book may be his Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalità or a copy of Euclid. Upon the table rest the instruments of a mathematician: a sponge, a protractor, a pen, a case, a piece of chalk, and compasses. In the right corner of the table there is a dodecahedron resting upon a book bearing Pacioli's initials. An rhombicuboctahedron (a convex solid consisting of 18 squares and 8 triangles) suspends at the left of the painting. The identity of the young man at the right is uncertain, but one commentator recognizes the "eternal student" instructed by Pacioli. Some authors have also mentioned the possibility that the student is Dürer. Italiano: L'opera, pur essendo esposta nella Galleria Farnese, non fa parte della Collezione Farnese, trattandosi di un acquisto dello Stato italiano fatto nel 1903-1904. Il dipinto raffigura il frate francescano Luca Pacioli, matematico e studioso delle proporzioni, mentre svolge un problema di geometria. Accanto gli sta un giovane nobile che potrebbe essere identificato con Guidobaldo da Montefeltro. Fra i vari oggetti disposti sul tavolo, il libro aperto presenta delle lettere che si riferiscono al titolo di un'opera del Pacioli, un trattato di matematica pubblicato a Venezia nel 1494 e dedicato proprio a Guidobaldo. Sospeso ad un filo vi è infine un poliedro in vetro nel quale si riflette un edificio molto simile al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino.
context_page_description: Accounting or accountancy is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "language of business", measures the results of an organization's economic activities and conveys this information to a variety of users, including investors, creditors, management, and regulators. Practitioners of accounting are known as accountants. The terms "accounting" and "financial reporting" are often used as synonyms.
  Accounting can be divided into several fields including financial accounting, management accounting, external auditing, tax accounting and cost accounting. Accounting information systems are designed to support accounting functions and related activities. Financial accounting focuses on the reporting of an organization's financial information, including the preparation of financial statements, to the external users of the information, such as investors, regulators and suppliers; and management accounting focuses on the measurement, analysis and reporting of information for internal use by management.
context_section_description: The history of accounting is thousands of years old and can be traced to ancient civilizations. The early development of accounting dates back to ancient Mesopotamia, and is closely related to developments in writing, counting and money; there is also evidence of early forms of bookkeeping in ancient Iran, and early auditing systems by the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. By the time of Emperor Augustus, the Roman government had access to detailed financial information.
  Double-entry bookkeeping was pioneered in the Jewish community of the early-medieval Middle East and was further refined in medieval Europe. With the development of joint-stock companies, accounting split into financial accounting and management accounting. 
  The first published work on a double-entry bookkeeping system was the Summa de arithmetica, published in Italy in 1494 by Luca Pacioli (the "Father of Accounting"). Accounting began to transition into an organized profession in the nineteenth century, with local professional bodies in England merging to form the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales in 1880.
caption: Portrait of Luca Pacioli, painted by Jacopo de' Barbari, 1495, (Museo di Capodimonte).
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