Fibonacci

Timeline

1. c. 1170–1191Pisa · TuscanyLeonardo was born in Pisa around 1170; his father Guglielmo (Bonacci) served the Republic of Pisa in overseas commerce and customs. He received elementary computational training in Pisa, laying the commercial arithmetic groundwork for his later absorption of Eastern numeration.
2. c. 1192–1198Béjaïa · AlgeriaWhen his father served as an official of the Pisan trading post in Béjaïa (Bougie), Leonardo traveled to North Africa and there learned Indo-Arabic decimal place-value notation and algorithms from Arab teachers—the key experience behind his later promotion of the new numerals in Western Europe.
3. c. 1198–1200Mediterranean · MediterraneanHe then traveled through Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily, Provence, and elsewhere, comparing local computational methods. These journeys at the end of the 12th century convinced him that Indo-Arabic numerals were superior to Roman numerals and the abacus, and he began to conceive a systematic textbook for Latin readers.
4. 1202Pisa · TuscanyIn 1202 he completed the Liber Abaci in Pisa, teaching the new numeration, fractions, proportions, and roots through commercial problems, and including the rabbit problem later known as the Fibonacci sequence. The book became the landmark text for the introduction of Indo-Arabic numerals into Western Europe.