thumb|left|Portrait of Luca Pacioli, a painting traditionally attributed to Jacopo de' Barbari, 1495, (Museo di Capodimonte). Luca Pacioli's Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalità (Italian: "Review of Arithmetic, Geometry, Ratio and Proportion") was first printed and published in Venice in 1494. It included a 27-page treatise on bookkeeping, "Particularis de Computis et Scripturis" (Italian: "Details of Calculation and Recording"). 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 mathematical puzzles it contained, and to aid the education of their sons.Sangster, Alan; Greg Stoner & Patricia McCarthy: "The market for Luca Pacioli’s Summa Arithmetica" (Accounting, Business & Financial History Conference, Cardiff, September 2007) pp. 1–2. In Summa Arithmetica, Pacioli introduced symbols for plus and minus for the first time in a printed book, symbols that became standard notation in Italian Renaissance mathematics. Summa Arithmetica was also the first known book printed in Italy to contain algebra. Pacioli obtained many of his ideas from Piero Della Francesca whom he plagiarized.
thumb|left|Portrait of Luca Pacioli, a painting traditionally attributed to Jacopo de' Barbari, 1495, (Museo di Capodimonte). Luca Pacioli's Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalità (Italian: "Review of Arithmetic, Geometry, Ratio and Proportion") was first printed and published in Venice in 1494. It included a 27-page treatise on bookkeeping, "Particularis de Computis et Scripturis" (Italian: "Details of Calculation and Recording"). 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 mathematical puzzles it contained, and to aid the education of their sons.Sangster, Alan; Greg Stoner & Patricia McCarthy: "The market for Luca Pacioli’s Summa Arithmetica" (Accounting, Business & Financial History Conference, Cardiff, September 2007) ,pp. 1–2. In Summa Arithmetica Pacioli introduced symbols for plus and minus for the first time in a printed book, symbols that became standard notation in Italian Renaissance mathematics. Summa Arithmetica was also the first known book printed in Italy to contain algebra. Pacioli obtained many of his ideas from Piero Della Francesca whom he plagiarized.