550TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE COMPLETION OF “THE BOOK ON THE ART OF TRADING” BY BENEDIKT KOTRULJEVIĆ

Motif: First page from the book of Benedikt Kotruljević “The Book on the Art of Trading” and detail of the painting of Quienten Metsijs Benedikt Kotruljević (1416 – 1469), also known as Benko or Beno Kotruljić and Benedictus de Cotrullis, was born in 1416 in a wealthy family of merchants and diplomats in Dubrovnik. Jakša Kotruljević, Benedikt’s father, developed the trade of wool. Benedikt received his basic education in Dubrovnik and Ferrara. Afterwards he studied law in Italy, in Naples and Bologna. After his father’s death Benedikt returned to Dubrovnik and continued his father’s business. There, in the year 1436, he married Nikoleta Dobrić with whom he had six daughters and five sons. As diplomat and merchant, Benedikt’s father Jakša Kotruljević traded with Bosnia, Serbia, Italy, Spain, Hungary and Apulia. Using the advantages attained by his father, Benedikt spread out his trading to the Kingdom of Aragon and Catalonia. As Naples belonged to the Kingdom of Aragon since the year 1442, Benedikt and his family moved to Naples and he also moved the headquarters of his company there. By the decision of the Senate of the Republic of Ragusa, in 1458 he was appointed their general consul in Naples. After that he became a Neapolitan diplomat in the service of the King of Aragon, Ferdinand I. Toward the end of his life he was proclaimed director of the state mint in Aquila and Naples. He died in Aquila in the year 1469. The most significant work of Benedikt Kotruljević is definitely his “Book on the Art of Trading” [Il libro dell’ arte di mercatura], where he presents a review of economy, trade and bookkeeping. What is essential for economists is that in this work Kotruljević explained the principle of the double-entry system of bookkeeping. This is the first important text about the double-entry bookkeeping that relates to the significance and orderly bookkeeping of business books in trade. As in the course of copying of the work some essential parts were left out, and the edition into which the earlier left-out parts were included was printed rather late, the merits for the first mention of the double-entry bookkeeping were passed on to the Italian called Luca Pacioli, a mathematician who had, 79 years before the edition of Frano Petrić but 36 years after the completion of Kotruljević’s tractate, published the work “Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita”, where he dealt with the problem of double-entry bookkeeping. Thus Pacioli by default carried the title of the first person to have demonstrated double-entry bookkeeping for 400 years, i.e. all through to the end of the 19th century. This error occurred in the copy that was made by a humanist, not an economist. Owing to lack of knowledge of economy and the terminology, in the course of copying some rather crude oversights occurred, both incidental as well intentional (leaving out parts that were not clear to a person who was not an economist). It is interesting that Kotruljević in his farsightedness, obviously not sufficient enough, wrote his “Book” in Italian, not in Latin that the culture of that time and the dignity of the work demanded. The reason was the fact that the work was meant to be comprehensible to those it was intended to be used by. As a matter of fact, in the explanation of why he wrote in the vernacular, Kotruljević explained that the “Book” was intended for merchants. Unfortunately, he failed to foresee that in the future copies such crude transgressions of an author’s work could occur. “The Book on the Art of Trading” is divided into four parts, i.e. four books. In the first book the subject is the origin, forms and essence of the trade itself; in the second book there is the discussion about the attitude a merchant should take in relation to faith and religious observation. The third book deals with commercial customs in terms of the merchant’s moral and social virtues, and the fourth book deals with the merchant’s managing the home and home community as well as handling economy. The present-day economy, after the initial accumulation of capital, where only the income was essential, speaks about the win-win (advantageous to both sides) model of business activity – the model where after the finished business transaction both parties are satisfied and have profited, which makes further continuation of co-operation possible. Kotruljević thus, as early as the fifteenth century, pondered about the way how one should profit so that everybody could be satisfied. Furthermore, he thought about the way how to develop trade as a noble activity, to the advantage of all parties. With regard to the fact that currently the market research is one of the key processes in business activities, it should be mentioned that Kotruljević was absolutely aware of the importance of market research and the selection of information sources. Moreover, image as one of the exceptionally crucial constituent parts of modern trading but of private life as well has been treated in the “Book” in several places, included in different themes. These few uttered issues and many unuttered ones, and yet mentioned in Benedikt Kotruljević’s work, point to the timelessness of some basic postulates of business transactions, but also fundamental ethical principles according to which one should not only deal in business affairs but also live one’s everyday life. Having evidently thought thoroughly about these issues, Benedikt Kotruljević, one of the greatest economists in history and outstanding Renaissance man of extensive spirit and education, had written an exceptional work.