The Market for Luca Pacioli’s Summa Arithmetica

Abstract

This paper looks at an aspect of Luca Pacioli and his Summa Arithmetica that has not previously been explored in detail - the mar- ket for which he wrote the book. In order to do so, it follows a path identified by two clues in the bookkeeping treatise as to the nature of this market that modern eyes, unaware of how life was in late 15th century Italy, have missed. After discussing the curriculum taught in schools at that time, this paper considers a range of possible markets for which the book may have been written. The paper concludes that it was written primarily for, and sold mainly to, merchants who used the book as a reference text, as a source of pleasure from the math- ematical puzzles it contained, and as an aid for the education of their sons.