The retrieval of the first financial report allows the analysis of the income and expenses of the Advanced School for Commerce from 1868 to 1872. This analysis shows the relevance of two groups of accounting headings: the contributions of the founding bodies and the government to the revenues; the salaries of the Director and of the faculty to the expenses. The numerical data corroborate the information available in other descriptive sources, allowing to discuss the crucial contribution of specific items to the good initial functioning of the School. The chapter also presents a comparison of the weightings of the main groups of accounting headings in the first report and in the last one.

This study considers the accountability practices implemented in the first schools of commerce to effectively communicate with stakeholders. Specifically, it analyses the initial system of accountability implemented by the first Italian higher school of commerce in the nineteenth century, with a particular focus on the use of cash and accrual methods. The microhistorical analysis draws on accountability and stakeholder theories and uses both primary and secondary information sources to investigate the original, hybrid approach adopted by the school, focusing on its dual accountability system. The results section explains the involvement of the government in establishing and recognising the school as a strategic asset for the entire kingdom, contradicting criticisms present in the extant literature; we also examine the innovative accountability process implemented by the school to satisfy the reporting needs of its salient stakeholders. The school was able to apply its accountability competences to implement a dual system, preserving its priorities as based on the relationships between its stakeholders’ needs (the old accountability system), educational skills (teaching the new accountability system) and the wider (national) implications resulting in an improvement of the entire accountability system.

Questo è il primo di una serie di quattro volumi pubblicati dai dipartimenti di Management, di Economia, di Studi Linguistici e Culturali Comparati e di Studi sull’Asia e sull’Africa Mediterranea dell’Università Ca’ Foscari per celebrare il 150° anniversario della fondazione della Scuola Superiore di Commercio in Venezia. Esso è dedicato al contributo apportato dalle discipline economiche e aziendali alle dinamiche storico-evolutive di Ca’ Foscari, con approfondimenti specifici sull’istituzione della Scuola Superiore, sugli studiosi che hanno insegnato nell’Ateneo e sull’evoluzione dei contenuti e delle modalità didattiche delle discipline economico-aziendali.

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This chapter aims at analysing how the teachings in accounting evolved from the foundation of the School of Commerce in Venice in 1868 for the first century of its activity. As teachings in accounting we consider the courses dealing with recognition methods and accounting principles both applying in private and public entities, but also the courses dealing with business practice where accounting played a relevant role (such as the case of the course entitled ‘Banco modello’). During this period the number, name and contents of teachings in accounting changed as consequence of the influence of the scientific thought of two great Maestri of Italian accounting: Fabio Besta and Gino Zappa, both teachers in Venice.