The Renaissance period (1400-1700) in European countries is renowned for path-breaking
and rapid developments and inventions.
The Renaissance period (1400-1700) in European countries is renowned for path-breaking and
rapid developments and inventions that took place in fields like arts, philosophy, and science. It’s
deemed that Florencia, Italy, was its epicenter. A crucial period from the particular point of
political, scientific, social and cultural changes, the Renaissance period designated the start of a
trend that reinforced Europe’s economic climate and military power.
The Renaissance period additionally had a positive, indirect impact on the social and cultural life
of European countries. This sociocultural impact consequently ignited changes in the realm of
science. Renaissance period was the transitional stage in Europe between the modern and
medieval times. Developments of this particular period turned out to be the cornerstone of
technological development.
Renaissance period marks a period of human awakening in which the mankind leaped to the
brighter modern era from the less bright middle ages. Inventions in the field of science and
technology, developments in various art forms and formation of new faith, beliefs and practices
in politics and religion during this period paved way for drastic changes in the intellectual, social
and cultural perceptions of mankind.
ACCOUNTING IN RENAISSANCE PERIOD
The innovative Italians of the Renaissance (14th -17th century) are widely acknowledged to be
the
fathers of modern accounting. They elevated trade and commerce to new levels, and actively
sought better methods of determining their profits.
Although Arabic numerals were introduced long before, it was during this period that the Italians
became the first to use them regularly in tracking business accounts – an improvement over
Roman
numerals the importance of which cannot be overstated. They kept extensive business records, as
the use of capital and credit on a large scale developed: The evolutionary trend toward double
entry bookkeeping was underway.
While there are many famous names from the Renaissance, such as Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei, and Christopher Columbus. One who is not as well-known is
Luca Pacioli. Yet, Pacioli’s impact on history, notably the development of accounting for record-
keeping and financial reporting, was enormous. Without effective accounting, the development
of business would have been substantially impaired, thereby limiting economic development and
in turn, the rising standards of living enjoyed by peoples around the world. While not as well-
known as some other Renaissance figures, Pacioli wrote a book that changed everything, well,
everything accounting, that is.
BOOKKEEPING BOOK
In 1494, the first book on double-entry accounting was published. The author, Luca Pacioli, was
an Italian friar. His impact on accounting was so great that five centuries later, accountants from
around the world gathered in the Italian village of San Sepulcro to celebrate the anniversary of
the book's publication. The first accounting book actually was one of five sections in Pacioli's
mathematics book, titled Everything about Arithmetic, Geometry, and Proportions. This section
on accounting served as the world's only accounting textbook until well into the 16th century.
Since Pacioli was a Franciscan friar, he might be referred to
simply as Friar Luca. While Friar Luca is often called the
"Father of Accounting," he did not invent the system.
Instead, he simply described a method used by merchants,
aka businesspersons, in Venice during the Italian
Renaissance period. His system included most of the
accounting cycle as we know it today. For example, he
described the use journals and ledgers, and he warned that a
person should not go to sleep at night until the debits equaled
the credits. His ledger included assets (including receivables
and inventories), liabilities, capital, income, and expense
accounts. Friar Luca demonstrated year-end closing entries
and proposed that a trial balance be used to prove a balanced ledger. He further alluded to a wide
range of topics from accounting ethics to cost accounting. Pacioli was 49 years old in 1494, just
two years after Columbus discovered America, when he returned to Venice for the publication of
his fifth book, Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita (Everything
About Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportions). The book was written as a digest and guide to
existing mathematical knowledge, and bookkeeping was only one of five topics covered. The
Summa's 36 short chapters on bookkeeping, entitled De Computis et Scripturis (Of Reckonings
and Writings) were added "in order that the subjects of the most gracious Duke of Urbino may
have complete instructions in the conduct of business," and to "give the trader without delay
information as to his assets and liabilities".
PRINTING PRESS
The most important invention of the Renaissance, and
perhaps in the history of the world, was the printing press. It
was invented by German Johannes Gutenberg, a German and
a goldsmith by profession, around 1440. By 1500 there were
printing presses throughout Europe. The printing press
allowed for information to be distributed to a wide audience.
This helped to spread new scientific discoveries as well,
allowing scientists to share their works and learn from each
other.
Creation of the printing press turned out to be a big help in
creating vernacular literature available to the wider public.
Metal alloys and molds were utilized in the first type of printing press created by Gutenberg.
This approach utilized by Gutenberg for prints was called the letterpress printing.
He used the actual ‘movable type’ of words for printing. In this particular approach, protruding
areas of the matrix, designed for printing, were inked. This ink was applied to create an outline
of words on the paper. This method of printing created by Gutenberg was used for a long time,
i.e., from the fifteenth century to the twentieth century, until the progression of counteracting
printing.
The printing press developed by Guttenberg used metal letters which can be replaced easily by
other letters. The required metal letters are selected and attached in lines in their correct
positions. Printing ink is applied to this plate and the plate is pressed with high pressure on the
paper thereby creating the impression of the letters on the paper.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of the printing press, he printed the holy bible, which contained
42 lines per page. Some copies of the holy bible printed by Guttenberg are still available in
archives.
The introduction of fast and easy printing technique was a curtain raiser for the spread of
knowledge and culture across the world. The accumulated knowledge of the previous centuries
was made available to everybody by the quick, cheap and easy printing system developed by
Guttenberg.
GREGORIAN CALENDAR
Gregorian calendar, which was introduced on Oct. 4, 1582,
by Pope Gregory XIII.
The new calendar, introduced during the Renaissance,
replaced the Roman Calendar that Julius Caesar had
reformed in around 46 B.C. Before Caesar realigned the
calendar, a Roman year had been 10 days shorter than a
current year, and divided into lunar months. In order to keep
the year in tune with the seasons, an extra month would be
tacked on occasionally.
Caesar noticed that Egyptians used a calendar based on the sun rather than the moon. So, in
consultation with the Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, he decided to create his own new
system, hoping to solve the problem of the drifting seasons.
Each solar year in Caesar’s calendar became 365 days and six hours long, and the shortest month
would get an extra day every four years to account for the annual accumulation of a quarter of a
day. He made that first year 445 days long, so that the transition between the old Roman calendar
and the new one would work.
However, Caesar’s estimation was slightly off—by 11 minutes and 14 seconds. By 1582, those
11 minutes per year had accumulated to a 10 day discrepancy. This discrepancy interfered with
calculating liturgical dates like Easter, which is set by the moon, so Pope Gregory XIII issued a
Papal Bull to fix the problem.
As a result, in the year 1582, Oct. 4 was followed directly by Oct. 15, and the time in between
was erased on the calendar and declared non-existent by the pope.
The pontiff also set up a convoluted new scheme to prevent such a maneuver from being
necessary in the future: every four year there would be a leap year, unless that year happened to
be the beginning of a new century—except for every 400 years, when we would keep the extra
day (“the exception to the exception,” as TIME once called it).
First implemented by Italy, Spain, Poland and Portugal in 1582, the Gregorian calendar is
today’s most widely used system. Turkey was the last country to officially switch to the new
system, which it did on Jan. 1, 1927.
SLIDE RULE
Slide rule, a device consisting of graduated scales capable of relative movement, by means of
which simple calculations may be carried out mechanically. Typical slide rules contain scales for
multiplying, dividing, and extracting square roots, and some also contain scales for calculating
trigonometric functions and logarithms. The slide rule remained an essential tool in science and
engineering and was widely used in business and industry until it was superseded by the portable
electronic calculator late in the 20th century.
The logarithmic slide rule is a compact device for rapidly performing calculations with limited
accuracy. The invention of logarithms in 1614 by the Scottish mathematician John Napier and
the computation and publication of tables of logarithms made it possible to effect multiplication
and division by the simpler operations of addition and subtraction. Napier’s early conception of
the importance of simplifying mathematical calculations resulted in his invention of logarithms,
and this invention made possible the slide rule.
The English mathematician and inventor Edmund Gunter (1581–1626) devised the earliest
known logarithmic rule, known as Gunter’s scale or the gunter, which aided seamen with
nautical calculations. In 1632 another English mathematician, William Oughtred, designed the
first adjustable logarithmic rule; as shown in the photograph, it was circular. Oughtred also
designed the first linear slide rule, although the familiar inner sliding rule was invented by the
English instrument-maker Robert Bissaker in 1654. The usefulness of the slide rule for rapid
calculation was recognized, especially in England, during the 18th century, and the instrument
was made in considerable numbers, with slight modifications.
Improvements in the direction of increased accuracy were initiated by Matthew Boulton and
James Watt from about 1779 in connection with calculations in the design of steam engines at
their works at Birmingham, England. In 1814 the English physician Peter Roget (of Roget’s
Thesaurus) invented his “log-log” slide rule for calculating powers and roots of numbers. The
fixed scale, instead of being divided logarithmically, is divided into lengths that are proportional
to the logarithm of the logarithm of the numbers indicated on the scale; the sliding scale is
divided logarithmically.
Amédée Mannheim, an officer of the French artillery, invented in 1859 what may be considered
the first of the modern slide rules. This rule had scales on one face only. The Mannheim rule,
which also brought into general use a cursor, or indicator, was much used in France, and after
about 1880 it was imported in large numbers into other countries.
Most important of later improvements was the arrangement of the scales, trigonometric and log-
log, so that they operate together while maintaining a consistent relationship to the basic scales.
This arrangement gave added speed and flexibility to the solving of many problems—simple and
complex alike—because it produced solutions by continuous operation instead of requiring the
user to combine intermediate readings.
CALCULATING MACHINE
Inspired by Kepler’s construction of his logarithm tables to
simplify his astronomical calculation Schickard conceived
and constructed his Rechenuhr (calculating clock) for the
same purpose in 1623.
In 1623, Schickard invented a calculating machine, called by
his contemporaries the Speeding Clock or Calculating Clock.
It preceded the less versatile Pascaline of Pascal and
Leibniz's Stepped Reckoner by twenty years.
Schickard's letters to Johannes Kepler show how to use the machine for calculating astronomical
tables. The machine could add and subtract six-digit numbers, and indicated an overflow of this
capacity by ringing a bell; to add more complex calculations, a set of Napier's bones were
mounted on it. Schickard's letters mention that the original machine was destroyed in a fire while
still incomplete. The designs were lost until the 19th century; a working replica was finally
constructed in 1960.
MECHANICAL CLOCK
The first mechanical clock was invented during the early Renaissance. Improvements were made
by Galileo who invented the pendulum in 1581. This invention allowed clocks to be made that
were much more accurate.
The mechanical clocks that worked with the help of ‘verge-and-foliot’ system were unveiled in
the fourteenth century. The first models of mechanical clock contained a drum which
incorporated mercury; the drum was operated using weights.
Computing a daily time in 24 hours became achievable right
after the advent of a mechanical clock. During 1656, a
pendulum time clock was created by Christian Huygens.
It is believed that measurement of time was known to man
even during the period around 4000 BC. In those days
primitive form of clocks like sundials and water clocks were
used to measure/know time. The development of mechanical
clock was a gradual process which took several years to
reach its present stage. In the earlier mechanical clocks
mercury was allowed to pass through the holes on the drums.
These drums had compartments which contained mercury. The movement of the drum was
controlled by the flow of mercury. By the introduction of the mechanical clocks it became
possible to measure the time period of a day as twenty four hours and its fractions. It is believed
that Filippo Brunelleschi in Florence, Italy, invented mechanical clocks in 1410.
Leonardo Da Vinci, the famous artist and scientist does not hold the credit of inventing the
mechanical clock, but had contributed considerably to the development of the modern
mechanical clock.
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Group 5 – Inventions from Renaissance