Benedetto Cotrugli

Benedetto Cotrugli (Croatian: Benedikt "Beno" Kotruljević; 1416–1469) was a Ragusan merchant, economist, scientist, diplomat and humanist.

Cotrugli was born in the city of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik), part of the Republic of Ragusa.

The earliest extant copy of his manuscript Libro de l'Arte de la Mercatura (Book on the Art of Trade) is kept in the National Library of Malta and is dated 1475, although the original manuscript was dated 1458. The text of his 1458 manuscript Della mercatura e del mercante perfetto is followed by an appendix containing an inventory and many journal entries. It predates the description made by Luca Pacioli of the modern double-entry system in his Summa de arithmetica of 1494.

As a diplomat of the Kingdom of Naples, he spent some 15 years in the Court of Naples where he led many discussions and polished his thoughts on humanist subjects.

He died in Aquila, in the Kingdom of Naples.

In 2007 The Croatian state devoted to Cotrugli (as the alleged inventor of double entry bookkeeping) a silver 150 kuna commemorative coin. Benedetto Cotrugli is the patron of the Cotrugli business school with branches in Zagreb, Belgrade and Ljubljana.