The double-entry system of accounting was first published in detail by Luca Pacioli, an Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar, in 1494. While Pacioli is widely credited as the "father of accounting" and for documenting the system comprehensively, the method itself was likely in use by Venetian merchants long before his publication. Pacioli credited Benedetto Cotrugli with originating the double-entry method, who described it in an unpublished manuscript about 36 years earlier. Some historians believe the system was used in Italy for hundreds of years before Pacioli's work. Nevertheless, Pacioli's book was the first detailed and widely disseminated work on double-entry bookkeeping, making a significant impact on the practice of accounting worldwide.