11/08/2023
Spectacles are a recent thing - aren't they??
Eyeglasses have a long and fascinating history. The Arab scholar and astronomer Ibn al-Heitam (ca. 965-1040 CE) was the first to suggest that smoothed lenses might assist someone suffering from a visual impairment. However, his idea of using parts of a glass sphere for optical magnification was only put into practice many years later.
Most historians believe that the first form of eyeglasses was produced in Italy by monks or craftsmen in Pisa (or perhaps Venice) around 1285-1289. These magnifying lenses for reading were shaped like two small magnifying glasses and set into bone, metal, or leather mountings that could be balanced on the bridge of nose.
However, it wasn’t until the 13th century that eyeglasses as we know them today were invented. The credit for the invention of eyeglasses is often given to Salvino D’Armate, an Italian inventor who was known for his skills in glassmaking. It is believed that he invented the first pair of eyeglasses around the year 1285.
The first portrait to show eyeglasses is that of Hugh of Provence by Tommaso da Modena, painted in 1352.
In 1480 Domenico Ghirlandaio painted St. Jerome at a desk from which dangled eyeglasses; as a result, St. Jerome became the patron saint of the spectacle-makers’ guild. The earliest glasses had convex lenses to aid farsightedness.
The first wearable eyeglasses were created in the 1700s by Edward Scarlett, a British optician. Eyeglass wearers now had access to the design we are familiar with today; around-the-ear glasses.
Once this design was created, eyeglass advancements took off. Benjamin Franklin invented the temple pieces that rest on the ear and, in 1779, bifocals, but it took until 1959 for the first varifocals to be manufactured. Photochromic lenses came along in the 1960s and multi-coloured, lightweight acetate frames.
Finally, the1980s saw the introduction of plastic lenses and the huge changes in design to change spectacles from a boring necessity, to a must-have, fashion accessory.
