Double-entry bookkeeping, in which every transaction is recorded as matching debit and credit entries, was codified for a wide readership in Luca Pacioli's printed Summa de arithmetica, published in Venice in 1494. The method, already used by Italian merchants, gave traders a self-checking, systematic record of capital, assets, profit and loss. Printing spread the technique across European commercial centres.
It provided the accounting discipline that underpinned trading companies, banks and large real-estate and infrastructure ventures, helping to mobilise and track the capital that financed mercantile city-building.