Pacioli, Summa de arithmetica, Toscolano, 1523, later calf-backed boards

Luca Pacioli

Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni, et proportionalita. Toscolano: Paganino Paganini, 20 December 1523

folio (284 x 207mm.), title and A1 printed in red and black within a white-on-black woodcut border, A1 with a woodcut initial containing a portrait of the author, printed marginalia and diagrams, woodcut initials, later calf-backed boards, lacking S4-7, border on title-page and A1 trimmed at foot, occasional light staining, spine rubbed and delaminated

SECOND EDITION of Pacioli's influential and comprehensive treatise on arithmetic, first printed by Paganino in 1494, which introduced double-entry book-keeping to a wide readership. Some of Pacioli's work was taken from other writers, such as Fibonacci, Piero della Francesca, and Chiarini's El libro di mercatantie et usanze de' paesi (1481).

LITERATURE:

Edit16 28198; Sander 5368; Mortimer, Harvard Italian 347