Abstract
This paper aims to investigate the materiality and relevance principles, as observed from a historical perspective, specifically as shown in the Tractatus XI of Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalità, printed in Venezia in AD 1494 by Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli, a real cornerstone for bookkeeping literature. Materiality and relevance principles are today fundamental to manage information and are discriminating for information acceptance. This research questions about how these principles are present in the Pacioli’ treatise. Seven fragments from the Tractatus, within which traces of relevance and materiality can be found, are extracted and analyzed under the IASB theoretical framework and their historical background. 
 
 This paper contributes to the literature by investigating the principles through a historical approach, that is selected to explore the topic and to argue about the possible causes for which it is possible to find early traces of relevance and materiality in Pacioli's work. Moreover, this research is a contribution to keep the debate open on the need for the participation of the academic world and practitioner, in the standard-setting process, that is currently lacking.
Highlights
This paper aims to investigate the materiality and relevance principles, as observed from a historical perspective, as shown in the Tractatus XI of Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalità, printed in Venice in 1494 AD by the Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli
Within the seven fragments highlighted by the Friar's work, it is possible to see the intention to provide practical advice to help in making materiality judgments
From the point of view of a Rational Management Theory (Rainero et al, 2018), during the Execution phase, when the recognition takes place, following in practice the indications provided by the treatise, it is possible to discern non-relevant information from relevant information, that is information capable of making a difference in the decisions made by users (IASB, 2018a)
Summary
This paper aims to investigate the materiality and relevance principles, as observed from a historical perspective, as shown in the Tractatus XI of Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalità, printed in Venice in 1494 AD by the Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli. Materiality and relevance principles are today fundamental to manage information and are discriminating for information acceptance For these reasons, they appear as two of the pillars for balance-sheets. (Bradbury & Schröder, 2012) Since this gap in the literature has been identified, i.e. the lack of a study of the concepts of materiality and relevance within the well-known Tractatus XI, and considering the importance of the concepts of relevance and materiality today, our research question is whether it is possible to identify these two concepts within Tractatus XI for the first time and whether it is possible to identify the reasons why these two concepts emerged.
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