The history of eyeglasses - Essay Example

Despite this early invention, Ilardi indicates that that reason it wasn’t believed that these lenses had been available at this earlier time period rests on a variety of science-related factors, including the late inventions of the telescope and the microscope and a general distrust of the distortions brought forward by the glass. He also presents the text of the documents that had been discovered which consist of a series of letters between Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan to his resident ambassador in Florence, Nicodemo Tranchedini da Pontremoli regarding eyeglasses in which the evidence exists for the wholesale use of these specialized lenses in correcting vision if not in science.

Confusing the issue regarding the origin of the eyeglass, though, are reports in China of similar inventions coming to them earlier than the Italian invention. An article from 1936, Kaiming Chiu’s “The Introduction of Spectacles into China,” makes the claim that spectacles may have introduced into China as early as the twelfth century, coming in from Malacca “in the Western Regions.” According to the author, this date was derived by comparing the original documents and reviewing the probable date regarding when they were written given what is known about the life of the author.

This also places spectacles in China at least a century earlier than had been determined based on readings of the Western texts, especially the texts coming out of Italy. A large part of the confusion resides in the several textual errors included in the base work, proven by further date comparisons between when a work was written and when the author lived. Through this analysis, the author concludes that while the majority of spectacles were probably introduced to China in the late 14th century as a result of trade with Western countries, there is evidence that at least one Chinese man owned a set