A Brief Travelogue of Eyewear

Open book of maps with a pair of spectacles

It is for a fact that history travels across time and space. But even though we often speak of humans’ collective experience in timelines and artifacts, seldom do we recount our most treasured backstories through a geographical perspective. In this topographical retelling of the origin of eyewear, we will journey across vast oceans and territories to trail down the birth – and migration – of eyeglasses. (more…)

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The Glassmakers of Venice

Eyezone Blog - The Glassmakers of Venice

In the early 1200s in Venice, early craftsmen knew that shaping rock crystals into convex shapes could form “lapides ad legendum”, also called “oglarii di vitro”, or the so-called “stones for reading”. Regular use of these reading stones dated back to 1000 AD. However, the Capitulary of the Guild of “Crystal Craftsmen” allowed the use of these (more…)

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