Emanuele Pisani: la vita e le opere

The article particularly focus on the life and work of Emanuele Pisani. He was an important scholar of one of the most fruitful period responsible for the development process of the modern accounting, across the end of nineteenth century and the beginning of twentieth century. Nevertheless, his major role was put in the shadows because, in the same period, two big personalities, Giuseppe Cerboni and Fabio Besta (and their schools), monopolized the Italian scientific context. For that reason, Pisani received less attention than what he was deserving from the accounting historians. This contribution, result of a long and rigorous work of archive and bibliographic research, has allowed to outline a complete profile, in good part unpublished, of Pisani man and scholar, as well as to set him precisely in his time and, therefore, in his specific context. After having reconstructed the extensive bibliographic production of Pisani, in addition to the publications about the "statmografia" - his "favourite" accounting creation - for the first time his main "less important" writings have been examined. Finally, it has been carried out an accurate study of the fortune of "statmografia", critically reporting the remarks that the scholars, Pisani’s contemporaries and not, have expressed about this accounting application.