Development of round glasses
History of round glasses
One of the earliest etchings of eyeglasses, dating back to the 13th century, shows some studious clergyman in some ancient monastery squinting at his parchment from behind a pair of round-framed specs. Later, in the early 1600s, a portrait of that well-known cardinal, Fernando Niño de Guevara, shows him sporting yet another pair of circular frames. Of course, these early varieties wouldn’t exactly fly off the shelves today. They often lacked temples, needed to be held by a hand, and were either made of leather or weighty metals like lead and iron. It could be said that the glasses of yesteryear weren’t the best lookers, but they didn’t need to be. They were purely functional, the reserve of a studious and god-fearing elite.