Q 01/05

Which Franciscan friar published the first printed description of double-entry bookkeeping in 1494?

A) Luca Pacioli

B) Fibonacci

C) Benedetto Cotrugli

D) Girolamo Cardano

Answer · why

A) Luca Pacioli

Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar, printed the first description of double-entry bookkeeping in his 1494 Summa de arithmetica, written in Italian so me...

Q 02/05

Which Renaissance artist illustrated Pacioli's Divina proportione (1509)?

A) Michelangelo

B) Raphael

C) Sandro Botticelli

D) Leonardo da Vinci

Answer · why

D) Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci drew the illustrations; the two worked together from about 1497 to 1506.

Q 03/05

The oldest surviving complete double-entry system is the 1340 Messari accounts of which Italian city?

A) Genoa

B) Venice

C) Florence

D) Milan

Answer · why

A) Genoa

Genoa: the 1340 ledgers of the city's massari (treasurers) are the oldest complete double-entry books; Florence's Farolfi fragments of 1299-1300 are o...

Q 04/05

Accounting records over 7,000 years old, in the form of clay tokens, have been found in which ancient region?

A) Egypt

B) Mesopotamia

C) The Indus Valley

D) China

Answer · why

B) Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia: clay tokens dating from around 8000 BC were used by temple economies to track goods, thousands of years before cuneiform writing develope...

Q 05/05

The word 'auditor' comes from the Latin audire, meaning what?

A) To count

B) To check

C) To hear

D) To swear

Answer · why

C) To hear

Audire means to hear: early audits were literally heard, with the accounts read aloud to the person checking them.