The first eyeglasses were semi-spherical and made of rock crystal and quartz. They were used by Italian monks who called them ‘reading stones’. By the 13th century, a small island to the north of Venice called Murano began making eyeglasses. For a long time the artisans here closely guarded the secret of glassmaking till eventually others caught on.
By the 14th century, eyeglasses were being mass produced in Florence. With the invention of the printing press, the demand for eyeglasses increased as more and more people started to read. With the emergence of the first newspaper, the ‘London Gazette’ in 1665, the demand for eyeglasses increased still further!
Tommaso de Modena was the first artist to paint a portrait that showed eyeglasses in 1352 AD. The oldest pair of spectacles ever recovered was from Wienhausen Abbey, a Catholic convent in Germany. They are believed to date back to 1400 AD.
Eyeglasses became common by the 1800s but modern glasses appeared only by the 1920s.
Picture Credit : Google
