Eye Glasses
Glasses are made up of two components. The frame which usually conveys fashion, and the lenses which perform the task of refracting light.
The earliest spectacles were produced by glaziers in Venice, Italy. Lenses in these first eyeglasses were made from quartz or rock crystal and produced by gold craftsmen. The earliest historical figure to wear glasses was Bishop Ugone da Provenza. He was protrayed in a painting in the year 1252, which can be seen in the church of St. Nicolo in Italy. Craftsmen who made these early glasses were called The Cristallerieri, and they had their own ethics code established in the year 1284.
Spectacles were not commonly used until after the printing press was invented by Guttenburg in the mid-1500's. The written word marked the beginning of the need to correct vision with eyeglasses. The initial lens design was biconvex and corrected presbyopia and farsightedness. Some time later biconcave lenses were made to help the nearsighted. Johannes Kepler discovered the idea of grading lenses by their focal power.
In the 1800's most glasses were sold in hardware stores. Slowly jewelers succeeded hardware stores as the dispenser of glasses. People who thought they needed glasses would try on one after another until they found the pair that worked for them.
Bausch and Lomb and American Optical were the first companies in America to produce ophthalmic lenses for optometrists. The first lenses they mass produced were glass and later in the 1900's a material made of plastic was introduced that revolutionized the lens industry.
Lens Materials
Lens Designs
Lens Coatings
