History About Luca Pacioli

Luca Pacioli who was an Italian mathematician, was born in the year 1446, in the Tuscan town of Sansepolcro.In this town, he received his earlier education known as abbaco education. This was the education in the vernacular (i.e. the local tongue) rather than Latin and focused on the knowledge required of merchants. His father was Bartolomeo Pacioli. However Luca Pacioli lived with the Befoci family as a child in his birth town Sansepolcro. He then moved to Vernice around 1464,where he continued his own education while working as a tutor to the three sons of a merchant. He wrote his first book, “a treatise on arithmetic” for the boys he was tutoring. Between 1472 and 1475,he became a Franciscan friar. Thus, he could be referred to as Fra (Friar) Luca.

In 1475,he started teaching in Perugia as a private teacher before becoming first chair in mathematics in 1477. During this time he wrote a comprehensive textbook in vernacular for his students. In 1494,his first book, summa de arithmetica, geometria,proportioni et proportionalita, was published in Vernice. In 1497,he accepted an invitation from Duke Ludovico Sforza to work in Milan. There he met,taught mathematics to,collaborated and lived with Leonardo da Vinci. In 1499,Pacioli and da Vinci were forced to flee Milan when Louis XII of France seized the city and drove out their patron. Their paths appeared to be separated around 1506.

Pacioli died at about the age of 70 on 19 June 1517.