The history of eyewear
The Eyewear Museum, located in Pieve di Cadore, was born as an idea after two exhibitions on the subject dated 1956-1959, the real structure was born. The museum was born from the will of Vittorio Tabacchi, president of Safilo, together with the help of many associations and local authorities. The first management was given to the Eyewear Service Center and in 1996 it passed to the newly established Eyewear Museum Foundation. Since 2007 the museum has had a new location characterized by a modern design (COS.MO), not far from the house of the painter “Tiziano Vecellio”.
The Museum illustrates the territory’s link to optics by describing the history of evolution and technology in eyewear and objects linked to optics from the Middle Ages to the 1900s. More than 3000 glasses with various accessories and numerous optical instruments are exhibited.
Inside the Eyewear Museum:
The history of eyewear is traced by a common thread that, starting from the first examples of glasses without temples, reaches the modern glasses worn by film actors. The evolution passes through the invention of the frame in the 17th century, of the first sunglasses of the 18th century, to the pince-nez of the 1800s. Accessories made with precious materials are also exhibited.
There is a section dedicated to Chinese or Japanese eyewear culture.
As already mentioned, the ophthalmological product and the territory are linked. The path reconstructs from the birth of the Belluno industry to its development through period images and documents. It starts from the first company founded in 1878 by the Frescura and Lozza families who founded the first lens factory in a mill to exploit hydraulic energy for production purposes.
A room of the museum collects objects created by popular devotion including statues depicting Saint Lucia and ex voto from 1700.