Origini e sviluppi del giornalmastro nell’Italia dell’Ottocento

ABSTRACT:

The journal-ledger (Journal-Grand-Livre) was a new and ingenious accounting device invented by Edmond Degrange at the beginning of the 19th century. It deployed a journal plus a ledger blended into one register which is deemed to have contributed to the modernization of the accounting bookkeeping. Indeed, the journal-ledger set forth the “synthetic” double-entry bookkeeping and “synoptic” accounts which finally supplanted the “analytical” double-entry method. Such a device is worth noting insofar as it was diffused throughout scholars and experts and many accounting applications would stem from its logic henceforth. Indeed, further accounting devices would employ less registers in order to synthesize the accounts involved, thus retracing the functioning of Degrange’s journal-ledger. The main example of such a fashion in that period is the Logismography by Giuseppe Cerboni, which had been in use for 15 years as the Italian State accounting methodology. This work aims at singling out accounting applications of the journal-ledger, thus focusing on any “derived” features they posit and by comparing the existing similarities/differences between such accounting devices. The work contributes in retrieving the role played by Edmond Degrange in the Italian arena, as he has been neglected from accounting historians so far. Moreover it provides a frame of reference of the Italian accounting technique at the beginning of the 20th century. The paper builds upon the examination of accounting works which either had been released in Italy after the invention of the journal-ledger (that is from 1804 to the end of the 19th century) or posited the very technique of such a French device in order to perform comparative analyses. The work opens the door to international comparative analyses.

KEYWORDS: Journal-ledger, Edmond Degrange, Logismography, Statmography, Synthetic bookkeeping