Jan Ympyn Christoffels' Nieuwe Instructie (translated into English in 1547 as 'A Notable and Very Excellente Worke') was the first work in Dutch on double-entry bookkeeping and was widely translated.
In his book Ympyn took the work of Pacioli and his predecessors a step forward, drawing together their ideas and producing a set of illustrative accounts. The balance account and ledger closing procedures introduced by Ympyn became accepted as standard practice and were reflected in the textbooks produced by later authors.
Copies of Ympyn's works are very rare. Only two copies of the Flemish edition of 1543 are known, one is held by the ICAEW Library and the other is, or was, in the Public Library of Antwerp.
This article was originally prepared by the library team in the mid-twentieth century to introduce the rare books and facsimiles in our collection to a wider audience. It is not intended as a piece of scholarly analysis and should not be read as such.
Historical Accounting Literature
The ICAEW collection of historical accounting literature currently comprises over 4,000 volumes and includes works published from the 15th century to the early 20th century. The collection includes books and journals in a variety of languages.
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Turning the pages
Take a look at the digitised copy of Jan Ympyn Christoffels' influential work from the ICAEW collection
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