It wasn’t until the late 18 th century that his name finally resurfaced. However, after he passed away circa 1240, his name eventually disappeared from the pages of any writing on the history of mathematics. In Italy, he was even regarded as an icon.

He Was Forgotten for 400 Yearsĭuring his lifetime, Fibonacci grew to become a highly respected and well-known mathematician. Thanks to such works, it was apparent that Leonardo had a real talent for explaining mathematical concepts. His other published works include Practica Geometriae (“The Practice of Geometry”) and Liber Quadratorum (“The Book of Square”). By making that system available to western European businessmen, Leonardo’s Liber Abaci would play a major role in creating the modern world.” It is the system for writing numbers and doing basic arithmetic that is taught in schools today the world over. So remarkable and complete would be the transformation of human life brought about by this new system that generations that came long after him would eventually take it for granted, relegating numbers and arithmetic to a tedious but necessary routine chore that had to be learned by repetition (or, for later generations still, left to machines). “The invention Leonardo had written about was a remarkable new way of writing numbers and calculating them. In Finding Fibonacci, a biography on Fibonacci, author Keith Devlin said ( Ref. He published an expanded edition of this work in 1228, which is the version we are familiar with today. Later, in 1202, he published his findings in one of his more popular works, Liber Abaci, which popularized the Hindu-Arabic numerals in Europe. He soon realized that arithmetic with Hindu-Arabic numerals was much simpler and more efficient than with Roman numerals. Image by Hans-Peter Postel and licensed under CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.įibonacci was educated in Bugia, which is where he first learned of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. It is likely that this statue is an artist’s conception of Fibonacci, as there is little known of his physical appearance. This marble statue of Leonardo da Pisa located in Pisa, Italy, was completed by Giovanni Paganucci in 1863. Unfortunately, little is known of Fibonacci’s mother, who passed away when he was nine. His father, Guglielmo, was a well-off Italian merchant, customs official, and director of a trading post in Bugia, now called Béjaïa, a Mediterranean port in northeastern Algeria.

In celebration of this day, let’s take a look at five interesting facts about Fibonacci’s life and work.įibonacci’s exact place of birth is a mystery (similar to most of his childhood life), but he was likely born near Pisa, Italy, around 1170 (hence his moniker, Leonardo of Pisa). Fibonacci is best known for authoring Liber Abaci (“The Book of Calculation”), which introduced the basis of modern arithmetic to the Western world. Have you heard of Fibonacci Day? This holiday celebrates Leonardo Bonacci, more commonly known as Fibonacci, one of the greatest mathematicians of the Middle Ages.

Fibonacci sequences in nature