CR5 Issue 161 Oct 2018

History
The History of Specs
By Catherine Rose
Said to be man’s fifth most
important invention, many of
us see our spectacles as an
indispensable dispensable.
And with the array of modern
designs available now, they are
usually a fashion statement
too. It’s a far cry from the 1930s
when they were described as
‘medical appliances’.
Wearing glasses has often been
associated with stigma and it
wasn’t really until the 1960s
and 70s – when figures in the
public eye such as John Lennon,
Michael Cane and Elton John
turned their glasses into a
signature style – that they
began to be seen as potentially
desirable accessories. But where
did the idea of wearing lenses
over your eyes to help correct
your sight even begin?
Lenses have been around for
a long time. The properties of
optical lenses were known as far
back as the ancient Greeks.
The Vikings would grind lenses
out of rock crystal, and in the
12th century in Europe,
smooth-bottomed spherical
magnifying lenses were called
‘reading stones’.
It is generally accepted that the
first actual spectacles were made
in northern Italy in the late 13th
century and that they were in
accepted use by the 1350s, with
Italy exporting large numbers of
eye glasses to the Middle and
Far East. The lenses were
manufactured by highly skilled
‘cristalleri’ at the famous
Venetian island’s Murano
glassworks, to exacting criteria.
One of the earliest (if not the
earliest) artworks showing
people wearing spectacles and
using lenses is a series of
frescoes by the Italian artist
Tommaso da Modena,
completed in 1352 at the Basilica
san Nicolo in Treviso. They show
Cardinal Hugh, or Hugo, of
Provence wearing a pair to read
with, and Cardinal Nicholas of
Rouen attempting to decipher
a text using a monocular lens
on a handle. It is no coincidence
that the order from which these
cardinals came, the Dominicans,
were known as the ‘carriers of
the sciences’.
During this time, spectacles
would not have had arms or
earpieces but would have been
made up of two magnifying
lenses attached to a metal fame
or holder that could be riveted
to grip the nose (also known as
pince nez or rivet spectacles).
The spectacles would have acted
like reading glasses, with convex
lenses to correct long-sightedness
only (hyperopia and
age-related presbyopia).
In 1604, the well-known scientist
and astronomer Johannes Kepler
explained how convex and
concave lenses could correct
both long and short-sightedness
(myopia) and, in 1629, The
Worshipful Company of
Spectacle Makers was formed
in England. Their slogan was ‘a
blessing to the aged’.
Although rigid rod side arms
for spectacles were dreamt up
as early as the beginning of the
1700s (possibly by the London
optician Edward Scarlett), the
innovation didn’t catch on
initially, with people favouring
the use of lorgnettes and scissor
glasses until the late 18th
century, even after optician
James Ayscough improved on
them by adding folding hinges.
Lorgnettes
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