The inventor of the first spectacle lenses is unknown. Roman tragedian Seneca (4 BC -65AD) is said to have used a glass globe of water as a magnifier to read ''all the books of Rome''. It's been reported that monks in the middle ages used glass spheres as magnifying glasses to read.
The 13th century Venetians glass blowers are known to have produced reading stones made of solid glass that was put into hand-held, single lens-type frames made of horn or wood. These reading stones were similar to hand-held magnifying lenses of today.
Most historians believe that the first form of eyeglasses was produced in Italy by monks or craftsmen in Pisa (or perhaps Venice) around 1285-1289. These magnifying lenses for reading were shaped like two small magnifying glasses and set into bone, metal, or leather mountings that could be balanced on the bridge of nose.
The first known artistic representation of the use of eyeglasses was Tommaso da Modena's painting in 1352. His painting depicts monks reading and writing manuscripts. One monk uses a magnifying glass, but another wears glasses perched on his nose.
The first eyeglasses can only be used to rectify hyperopia and presbyopia. And those eyeglasses for myopia appeared much later, sometime in the early 1400's.
