Although for many people they are an indispensable accessory, the eyeglasses There are from a relatively recent timewere inventedin all likelihood, by the master glassmakers of Muranonear Venice, in 1200. And even more recent are the sunglasses that, in their modern shape, date back to the 1700s. Over the centuries, glasses have become increasingly efficient and today, in addition to being necessary for sight, they are also a fashionable accessory. Billions of people they wear glasses: in our country, he brings them about the 52% of citizens.
When the first eyeglasses and their history were born
The invention of the glasses dates back to Latest Middle Agespreviously, who was short -sighted or suffered from other vision pathologies could do very little to correct them, although already in ancient times some systems had been tested to see better: for example, the Roman emperor Nerve He looked at the gladiators’ shows through an emerald, but it is not known how effective the system was. One of the first scientists to hypothesize that vitters, suitably cut, could correct visual disorders was Arabic Ibn al-Heitamlived between the 11th and 11th centuries. However, the glasses were invented a Veniceat the Vetrerie di Muranoaround the 1200. It should be remembered that in the Middle Ages the most skilled glass masters in the world resided in the Republic of Venice and since the twelfth century the production of glass had been confined to the island of Murano in order to keep the processing techniques secret. The first glasses built in the 200 were made up of two Convex lenses that enlarged the imagesbut already at the end of the century they began to distinguish the glasses to correct the flaw defects from the magnifying glass. At 1352 the first representation Of a person with glasses, Cardinal Ugo of Provence, portrayed in a fresco of the church of San Nicolò in Treviso.
Originally the glasses hooked directly on the nose, the Lateral Starts some centuries later appeared: the first attestation is in the painting Adoration of the Magi by Bruegel the Elder, dating back to 1564. In the 19th century the industrial production Of glasses, in Italy, the first factory was implanted in Calalzo di Cadore, near Belluno, in 1878. Since then, the glasses have made enormous progress and have been able to correct the defects of vision in an increasingly precise way.
Sunglasses: a recent story
The sunglasses were invented in more recent times Compared to visible ones, but the use of tools to protect eyes from sunlight is much older. Already in prehistoric times the peoples of the Arctic, like the Inuit, wore a sort of mask so as not to make the light filter.
The real sunglasses, made of burnished glass, date back to the 1700s and, also in this case, the first models were built a Murano. Originally worn by the Venetian nobility to protect the view from the reflection of the sun on the canals (they were called, in fact, “gondola glass”), later spread outside Venice. The first image of a man with sunglasses dates back to 1772 and depicts the chemist Lavoisier engaged in a combustion experiment through sunlight. From the 1930s of the 1900s, sunglasses have become a common use accessory. During the twentieth century, moreover, particular types of glasses were introduced, such as those alone graduateswhich have both the function of protecting from the sun and correcting visual defects, and the Photochromatic lensesintroduced in the 1960s, which darken according to the brightness.
