THE EVOLUTION OF SUNGLASSES
Proof of using aids to help improve our sight date back as early as 1000 A.D. when a reading stone, or magnifying glass were developed. As with all great inventions the reading glasses genius lay in its simplicity, a segment of a glass sphere laid against reading material to magnify the letters.
According to recorded material sunglasses as we now them now were invented between 1268 and 1289, this is further backed up firstly by an english philosopher Roger Bacon who wrote in his Opus Majus in 1268:
"If anyone examine letters or other minute objects through the medium of crystal or glass or other transparent substance, if it be shaped like the lesser segment of a sphere, with the convex side toward the eye, he will see the letters far better and they will seem larger to him. For this reason such an instrument is useful to all persons and to those with weak eyes for they can see any letter, however small, if magnifier enough"
Later in 1289 a manuscript entitled 'Traite de con uite de la famille' contained the following comments:
"I am so debilitated by age that without the glasses known as spectacles, I would no longer be able to read or write. These have recently been invented for the benefit of poor old people whose sight has become weak"
In 1306 a monk of Pisa delivered a sermon in which he stated: "It is not yet twenty years since the art of making spectacles, one of the most useful arts on earth, was discovered. I myself, have seen and conversed with the man who made them first". The name of the true inventor of eyeglasses remains lost in history.
SUNGLASSES IN ART
Tommaso da Modena is attributed to painting the first subject wearing eyeglasses with his series of frescoes depicting brothers busily reading or copying manuscripts in 1352. Tommaso's frescoes quickly set a precedent within the art world and works by other painters soon followed with spectacles appearing on the noses of all sorts of subjects, most likely as a symbol of respect and wisdom.
THE CONCAVE LENS
In the 16th century a significant development took place, the concave lens arrived. Pope Leo X who was attributed with short-sightedness claimed concave lenses helped his vision whilst hunting.
Early spectacles used Quartz lenses as optical lenses had yet to be developed. Lenses were set in to a variety of mountings including bone, metal and leather whilst the two lenses often featured two handles riveted together in an inverted V shape which could be balanced on the bridge of the nose. Starting in Italy, spectacles quickly spread to the Low Countries, Germany, Spain and France.
In 1629 the 'Spectacle Makers Company' was formed in England; the coat of arms featured three pairs of spectacles with the motto 'A blessing to the aged'.
A SIMPLE PROBLEM
Since the conception of the spectacle one problem remained unsolved for nearly 350 years, how to stop them from falling off! Despite all of the strides in spectacle development the eyeglass was still flawed in one major way: every face is different. Frames depended greatly on the nose, their shape, size, firmness whilst the ears vary in symmetry.
As a result 17th Century spectacle makers experimented with ribbons of silk which were attached to the frames then looped over the ears! The Chinese took this concept a step further by attaching small ceramic or metal weights to the strings instead of making loops. Finally in 1730 an English optician named Edward Scarlett perfected the rigid sidepieces that rested atop of the ears. Word quickly spread and the modification soon spread across the continent.
THE BIFOCAL
The 1780's saw the development of the bifocal by Benjamen Franklin, he later said:
"I therefore had formerly two pairs of spectacles, which I shifted occasionally, as in traveling I sometimes read, and often wanted to regard the prospects. Finding this change troublesome, and not always suffficiently ready, I had the glasses cut and a half of each kind associated in the same circle. By this means, as I wear my own spectacles constantly, I have only to move my eyes up or down, as I want to see distinctly far or near, the proper glasses being always ready."