Jun

20

The Invention Of Eyeglasses

Filed Under Eyewear Knowledge, Sunglasses History, Sunglasses Trivia 

The story of the lens extends far back into human history and crosses not only continents, but also vastly different cultures. From Italy to Germany, France and the US, the history of eyeglasses is a tale of the frustrated vision-impaired searching for alternatives to a blurry existence. 

The exact date and inventor of eyeglasses is unknown. Indeed, historians assume that while development was occurring in the Western world in optometry, similar developments were occurring in parts of the East. We have little record (at least in English) of the Eastern timeline of eyeglasses development, and hence, this discussion focuses on the Western invention and development of glasses.

Around 20AD the Roman philosopher Seneca used a glass globe filled with water as a reading aid, apparently suffering from farsightedness. His invention was improved upon by the development in the year 1000AD of reading stones made of solid, polished glass, essentially a magnifying glass used for reading. These were set into bone or soft metals and hand-held only when reading or examining objects close-up.

The thirteenth century Italian monk Salvino D’Armate, despite the lack of visual and textual references, is widely believed to be the inventor of modern eyeglasses. These were essentially magnifying glasses in various shapes depending on the severity of one’s eye ailment. It is presumed that he used the thickness of blown glass at different intervals in one glass object as a means of finding the right thickness for each person based on the degeneration of their eyes.

In 1306 an Italian monk delivered a sermon that was copied into text. In the sermon he made mention of the fact that it had only been twenty years since the invention of spectacles. From this first written record historians surmise that it may well have been D’Armate who made (or at least refined and then popularized) the modern reading glasses design, complete with convex and concave lenses.

Despite all of these advancements, it was not until Johannes Kepler released research on optics and astronomy that the eye was properly mapped, thus explaining earlier successful attempts with concave and convex lenses for the correction of vision problems.

Nearsightedness, until the fifteenth century, had seen little progress. Pope Leo X, however, writes that he acquired and wore eyeglasses when hunting to increase long distance vision. We can safely assume that distance glasses had been around for roughly forty to fifty years prior to the pope’s nonchalant mention of his set of glasses.

By the mid-sixteenth century eyeglasses tied to your cranium were being replaced by spectacles resting on the bridge of your nose and tied loosely behind your ears. In the next hundred years they evolved into the metal frames we know today. It was at this phase in the development of eyeglasses that Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals in l784 to ease the transition for those who would otherwise have to switch between near and far sighted correctional lenses.

 Following these well-paced developments, the field of optometry (the study of eyes) was advanced by Moritz Von Rohr, who invented the first aspheric lenses. Meaning, he made it possible to have thinner lenses, and to decrease the distortion of the eye others see when looking at a person wearing glasses.

Shortly after the Von Rohr additions, scientists began searching for ways not only to correct vision, but to enhance aesthetics. Thus emerged the contact lens, and not long after that—laser eye surgery.

Thus, from before the time of Christ to present day, the development of eyeglasses—a necessity for some—has improved at a continuous and steady pace. One can only imagine the next phase in development!

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