Eyeglasses & Spectacles

Additional links on the history of eyeglasses and spectacles during the Middle Ages and Renaissance can be found here.

(Elsewhere on this website: 18th century spectacles & eyeglasses.)

• Nicholas of Rouen and Hugh of Provence by Tommaso da Modena, 1351-1352
• The Virgin finds Jesus, Très belles heures de Notre Dame de Jean de Berry (BNF NAL 3093, fol. 62), c. 1380
• Late medieval eyeglasses and eyeglass-cases found at convents in Lüneburg, Germany. See Getrübte patrizische Weltsicht in Lüneburg? Brillen, Brillengläser und ein Brillenetui and Slide Show of the Wienhausen Spectacles.
• Rivet spectacles found at Bergen-Op-Zoom (in the Netherlands), late 14th-early 15th century
• Detail of an apostle wearing eyeglasses in the Wildunger Altar by Conrad von Soest, 1403
• The Madonna with Canon van der Paele by Jan van Eyck, 1436
• Bone framed spectacles from London, 15th century
• Horn-rimmed spectacles from Elbing, 15th century
• Aristotle or Aretino wearing spectacles, Aristotle’s Ethica (British Library Harley 3305, fol. 5v), c. 1425-1440
• Detail from The Death of Mary, c. 1438-1440
Right as a spectacle helpith feeble sighte,
Whan a man on the book redith or write,
And causith him to see bet than he mighte,
In which spectacle / his sighte nat a bit,
But gooth thurgh / & on the book restith it;
The same may men of ymages seye,
Though the ymage nat the seint be / yit
The sighte vs myngith to the seint to preye.

To Sir John Oldcastle, stanza 53, in The Works of Thomas Hoccleve

• A copyist in his workshop, Histoire des nobles princes de Hainaut (BMF Fr. 20127, fol. 2v), mid-15th century
• Detail from the Orders of Angels window of All Saints Church in York
• Temperance with Continence, Clemence, and Moderance, Livres des quatre vertus (Laud Misc. 570, fol. 16r), 1450
• Study of the heads of three men by Pisanello
• Monks singing a requiem in a book of hours (British Library Harley 2971, fol. 109v), c. 1450-1460
• Detail from The Disputation of St. Katherine with the Philosophers, c. 1455-1460
• St. Jerome (fol. 2r) and Jean Miélot (fol. 19r), Vie et miracles de Notre Dame (BNF Fr. 9198), 1456
• Copyists, Vita Jesu Christi (BNF Fr. 181, fol. 1), second half of the 15th century
• St. Mark, book of hours (Gough Liturg. 11, fol. 17r), second half of the 15th century
• Detail from Twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple by Friedrich Herlin, 1462
• The letter "N" from the Fantastic Alphabet, Master E.S., 1465
• The Circumcision of Christ by Friedrich Herlin, 1466
• The Magician by Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1475-1480
• Mercury and His Children, the Wolfegg Housebook, c. 1475-1485
• St. Jerome in his Study (detail) by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1480
• Wise men, Livre des symples medichinos, autrement dit Arboriste (BNF Fr. 9136, fol. Av), c. 1480
• The Death of the Virgin by Hans Holbein the Elder, c. 1490
• Allegory of the virtues of Ferdinand I of Naples, De majestate (BNF Italien 1711, fol. 41r), 1492-1493
• The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin by Albrecht Dürer, c. 1496
• Detail from St. Augustine, 1498
• A richly-dressed youth holds a book and a pair of glasses, Propertius (Canon. Class. Lat. 31, fol. 1r), end of the 15th century
• St. Catherine and the philosophers, Leven van S. Katharina (BNF Néerlandais 129, fol. 12), end of the 15th century
• Patroness and virtues, Toison d'Or (BNF Fr. 138, fol. 1v), 15th-16th century
• An impression of a pair of leather-framed spectacles in the endpapers of a book; the impression may date to the late 1400s or early 1500s
• The death of St. Martin and Saint Jude on the Retable of St. Martin by Master of Rio Frio, c. 1500
• Mark the Evangelist in the Tilliot Hours (British Library, Yates Thompson 5, f. 12), c. 1500
• The Bellows-Repairer by Hieronymus Bosch
• An ox plays tric-trac in a Viennese fresco, c. 1500-1525
• St. John the Evangelist on Patmos by Hieronymus Bosch, 1504-1505
• Detail (a spectacle-case) in Jesus in the Temple, c. 1505-1515
• Portrait of a canon by Quentin Massys, 1510s
• The Holy Family by Joos van Cleve, c. 1512-1513
• An old man drawing by Lucas van Leyden, c. 1512-1513
• The Holy Family by Joos van Cleve, c. 1515
• The Holy Family, workshop of Joos van Cleve, c. 1515
• The Holy Family by Joos van Cleve, c. 1525
• St. Jerome in his study, Joos van Cleve, 16th century
• Pope Leo X with Cardinal Giulio de' Medici and Luigi de' Rossi by Raphael, c. 1517-1519
• Chants Royaux du Puy Notre-Dame d'Amiens (BNF Fr. 145), 1518, fols. 23r, 37r, 43r, and 46r
• Madonna and Child by the Master of Saint-Sang, c. 1520
• Portrait of a scholar by Quentin Massys
• St. Mark by Lucas van Leyden, c. 1526-1550
• The eyeglass-seller, by Dirk Jacobsz
• Portrait of a scholar holding a pair of spectacles, c. 1540-1560
• St. Jerome in meditation by Georg Pencz, c. 1548
• A municipal treasurer and his financial guarantor by Marinus van Reymerswaele, 1549
• Self-portrait of Simon Bening, 1550s
• The Fight Between Carnival and Lent by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1559
• Detail from The Adoration of the Kings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1564
• Detail from The Adoration of the Kings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1556-1562
• The painter and the buyer, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1565
• The eyeglass-maker, Das Ständebuch, 1568
• The Bellows Mender, late 16th century
• Printing books, iron clocks, distillation, spectacles, and engraving on copper, New discoveries; the sciences, inventions, and discoveries of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as represented in 24 engravings issued in the early 1580's by Stradanus
• Frontispiece of Johann Siebmacher's Schön Neues Modelbuch, 1597
• Portrait of a Cardinal, Probably Cardinal Don Fernando Niño de Guevara by El Greco, c. 1600