![Conspicilla [The Invention of Eyeglasses] by Jan Collaert II](https://media.printed-editions.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/30092530/stradanus_conspicilla_sarah_sauvin-scaled.jpg)
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Engraving after Johannes Stradanus, 205 x 270 mm. New Hollstein (Johannes Stradanus) 337, 2nd state (of 4).
Plate no. 15 in the Nova Reperta series.
Impression of the 2nd state (of 4) with number 15 in the bottom left margin.
Very fine impression printed on laid watermarked paper (watermark: crowned interlaced Cs). Slightly yellowed sheet. Small margins all around the platemark (sheet: 245 x 305 mm).
The caption in Latin reads: Inventa conspicilla sunt, quae luminum Obscuriores detegunt caligines. Glasses have been invented, which remove the veil of darkness from the eyes.
Sven Dupré recalls that spectacles with convex lenses to correct presbyopia were invented around 1285 in Italy, while those with concave lenses to correct myopia were readily available from the middle of the 15th century. However, the quality of the lenses remained mediocre until the seventeenth century, when advances in optics and the polishing of lenses enabled them to be better adapted to the eyes.
This time, Conspicilla‘s image do not show the invention or manufacture of spectacles, but their marketing and various uses. Sven Dupré observes that in the sixteenth century spectacles were no longer a luxury item but were mass-produced, and that their quality had to be carefully checked before they could be bought. An old man is leaning over the counter of the spectacle merchant, who is extracting various spectacles from a display rack, which the old man tries on one after the other, while a passer-by looks on through a monocle. In the same street, we see the stalls of a cobbler and a bookseller or copyist, who are also wearing glasses, as are their customers, unlike the children, whose eyesight is still good. Spectacles are therefore not only necessary for some people with poor eyesight, they are indispensable for almost everyone who, as they grow older, would otherwise be unable to continue their manual or intellectual activities, and as such they deserve to feature in the Nova Reperta series.
