Eyeglasses

Monks or craftsmen in Italy produced the first form of eyeglasses between 1285-1289. In 1306, a monk in Pisa, Italy named Giordano da Rivalto remarked in a sermon that he knew the man who created glasses, but he failed to give the person’s name. Its inventor attempted to keep the idea a secret to avoid economic competition, but a monk named Friar Alessandro Spina knew of the design and decided to make pairs of glasses himself and then distribute them to everyone. Even before this, Roman Emperor Nero, who lived in the 1st Century A.D. used a polished emerald to correct his vision.