PACIOLO OR PACIOLI?

Abstract In the July 1944 issue of the journal The Accounting Review, there appeared an article concerning the correct spelling of the name of Italian mathematician Luca Paciolo. Author Alfred V. Boursy, defends the position that the correct form is "Paciolo" and not "Pacioli." He bases his argument on linguistic and philological reasons, and the text of a tablet erected by the people of Paciolo's birthplace, Sansepoicro, a small town near Arezzo in Italy. The author's philological and linguistic reasons are sound. It appears that the author's statements are open to question. Boursy takes the text of the tablet from an Italian work by writer Plinio Bariola. This book is poorly done and contains numerous factual mistakes and errors in interpretation. It should never be cited as an authority. Bariola misquotes the text of the Sansepoicro tablet. A correct version is found in writer Balduin Penndorf's German translation of the treatise on bookkeeping by Luca Paciolo. From the analysis of the evidence it clearly appears that the tablet is dedicated to Luca Pacioli, and not to Luca Paciolo as stated by Bariola and repeated, on his authority, by Boursy in the July issue of the Accounting Review.