fl. c. 1285-1317

Italian inventor sometimes credited with the development of eyeglasses. A Florentine, Armati created his glasses between 1285 and 1299, some two decades after Roger Bacon (1213-1292) suggested in his Opus majus that properly shaped lenses might have a corrective effect on persons with poor eyesight. Though Armati certainly developed one or more pair of spectacles, credit is somewhat more often given to Alessando di Spina (d. 1317), a Dominican monk who may have created his own pair as early as 1282.