Who Invented Eyeglasses? The Unknown Inventor of Medieval Italy

Short answer

Who invented eyeglasses? Nobody knows. Eyeglasses appeared in northern Italy in the late 13th century, and the earliest firm evidence is a sermon preached in Florence in 1305 by the friar Giordano da Pisa, who said the art of making them had been found less than twenty years earlier. The inventor’s name was not recorded, and the best-known later claim does not hold up.

Key takeaways

Eyeglasses appeared in Italy in the late 13th century; the inventor is unknown.
The earliest firm evidence is a sermon of 1305, in which the friar Giordano da Pisa said the art of making eyeglasses had been discovered less than twenty years earlier.
Another friar, Alessandro della Spina, is remembered for making glasses and sharing the method, not for inventing them.
The earliest known painting of eyeglasses is a fresco by Tommaso da Modena in Treviso, from 1352.
Arms that rest on the ears came much later, in the 18th century, and Benjamin Franklin is credited with bifocals in 1784.

For something worn by billions of people, eyeglasses have a remarkably anonymous origin. That gap has not stopped people from trying to fill it, and the result is one of the clearest cases of a legend dressed up as history.

A friar’s sermon

On a day in 1305, the Dominican friar Giordano da Pisa preached at the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. In the middle of the sermon, he said: “It is not yet twenty years since there was found the art of making eyeglasses.”

This is the most important piece of evidence we have. It places the invention in the 1280s, in Italy, and it tells us that the novelty was still fresh enough to be worth mentioning from the pulpit. The friar did not say who had made the first pair.

The friar who shared the secret

Another Dominican from the same monastery in Pisa, Alessandro della Spina, is often mentioned in the story. He was known for being able to make whatever he saw made, eyeglasses included. He is remembered for helping the new art spread, not for inventing it.

The tombstone that lies

In Florence, a memorial in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore honors Salvino degli Armati as the “inventor of eyeglasses”, with a date of 1317. It looks like proof. It is not. The epitaph first appeared in print in 1684, published by a Florentine writer who claimed to have copied it from a burial register that he never produced and that has never been found. Scholars have shown that the word “inventor” was not used in the Florentine language of the 14th century, and the inscription visible today dates from 1841. The claim is now generally regarded as a hoax, apparently meant to give Florence the credit.

Some sources also give a precise year, 1286, for the invention. Historians are cautious: the evidence is too thin to support an exact date.

Glasses in paint

The earliest known painting of eyeglasses is a fresco from 1352 by Tommaso da Modena, in the chapter house of the seminary beside the church of San Nicolò in Treviso. It shows a cardinal, Hugh of Saint-Cher, writing at his desk with rivet spectacles perched on his nose.

There is a small joke in it: the real Hugh died in the 1260s, before eyeglasses existed. The painter gave him the latest technology of his own time.

How glasses changed

The first eyeglasses were convex lenses for reading, useful for people whose near vision weakened with age. They had no arms; they were held in front of the eyes or balanced on the nose. Lenses for short sight, and frames that stayed in place, came gradually over the following centuries.

Spectacles with arms resting on the ears developed in the first half of the 18th century, and the modern two-lens frame with a bridge and side pieces took shape in England in the late 18th and 19th centuries. In 1784, Benjamin Franklin described bifocals, lenses split between distance and reading, and he is generally credited with them.

What we know and what we don’t

Claim	Status
Eyeglasses appeared in Italy in the late 13th century	Record
Giordano da Pisa mentioned their recent invention in 1305	Record
The inventor’s name	Unknown
Salvino degli Armati invented them	Legend, based on a later inscription
Invented in exactly 1286	Not supported by the evidence
Earliest painting of eyeglasses, 1352, Treviso	Record

What the story tells us

Eyeglasses changed the working life of everyone who reads, writes or sews, especially as they get older. A scholar who would have had to stop reading at fifty could now go on for decades. That such an important invention has no known inventor says something about the Middle Ages: the craftsmen who made it were not the kind of people whose names were written down.

The fork arrived in Italy as a scandal and spread slowly through the rest of Europe; eyeglasses spread much faster. See Who Invented the Fork?, or browse Everyday Objects.

Frequently asked questions

Who invented eyeglasses?

The inventor is unknown. Eyeglasses appeared in Italy in the late 13th century, and a friar who preached in 1305 spoke of the art as a recent discovery without naming its inventor.

When were eyeglasses invented?

Probably in the 1280s. In 1305, Giordano da Pisa said the art had been discovered less than twenty years earlier.

Did Salvino degli Armati invent eyeglasses?

No. The epitaph calling him the inventor first appeared in 1684, centuries after his supposed death, and historians regard it as a hoax.

Who invented bifocals?

Benjamin Franklin is credited with bifocals, which he described in 1784.

Who Invented Eyeglasses?