By Rafe Calder
An Italian glasses district grew in a mountain province, not in a city. The Eyewear Museum in Pieve di Cadore, in the Dolomites, sets out to tell how.
What the museum says it is
The Cadore Dolomiti tourism site says the museum was founded in 1956, from the dream of a Cadore resident, Enrico De Lotto, who wanted a National Museum of Eyewear in Cadore. It calls Cadore a symbolic centre of eyewear production. A second tourism site, Cadore Vacanze, tells it differently. It says the museum grew from an idea that followed two exhibitions, held between 1956 and 1959. The Treviso-Belluno Chamber of Commerce says the museum is run by a non-profit foundation established in 1996. Cadore Vacanze agrees on 1996 and adds that an Eyewear Service Center managed the museum first. It also says the museum has occupied a modern building, called COS.MO, since 2007, near the house of the painter Titian. The Cadore Dolomiti site gives the address as Palazzo Cos.Mo.
So the sources give 1956, 1956 to 1959, 1996 and 2007. They are probably four different events: a dream, two exhibitions, a foundation and a move. That is our reading. No source lays them out in that order.
What is inside
Cadore Dolomiti says the collection holds more than 4,000 artefacts, from antiquity to the present. Cadore Vacanze says more than 3,000 glasses with accessories are on display, along with many optical instruments. These may not conflict: one may be the whole collection and the other the part on show. Neither page says so.
The first floor, Cadore Dolomiti says, holds pince-nez, monocles, binoculars, telescopes, magnifying glasses and walking sticks with hidden spectacles, many in precious materials. The Dolomiti Bellunesi tourism site adds spectacles made from whale baleen, ivory telescopes, tiny spectacles set into fan ends or walking-stick handles, and glasses for hats or wigs, used “when stiff arms had not yet been invented”. It says the museum also keeps a specialised library of about 400 volumes, from the 17th century to the present. Cadore Vacanze dates three milestones: the invention of the frame in the 17th century, the first sunglasses in the 18th, and the pince-nez in the 1800s.
The materials
The Chamber of Commerce page, a public body’s press office, lists the materials the museum covers: aluminium, nickel, celluloid, ebonite, synthetic resins, monel and titanium. It does not say when each came into use, and neither do we. It also says the collection includes cases, binoculars and telescopes, and runs from the earliest medieval prototypes to contemporary models.
The district, upstairs
The second floor is where the museum turns to industry. Cadore Dolomiti says it holds documents, photographs, interviews, period films and machines covering spectacles from the late 19th century to the present. The Dolomiti Bellunesi site says this floor covers the development of an industrial eyewear district in the mountainous province of Belluno from the end of the 19th century. It sets the scene with the region’s peddlers, among them a man who sold scissors and spectacles and Cadore hawkers who sold bone combs. That context, it says, led to the first optical workshop in Calalzo di Cadore, which it treats as the origin of the local industry.
Cadore Vacanze gives a company date. It says the first company was founded in 1878 by the Frescura and Lozza families, who set up the first lens factory in a mill that ran on hydraulic energy. Whether that company and the Calalzo workshop are the same thing, the pages do not say. We will not join them.
Questions a buyer would ask
Does the museum tell me which brands are made in Cadore? The pages we read do not say which brands are made in Cadore today, and we name none.
Does it say what makes a frame well made? No. It describes materials and history, not quality tests.
Is it a good place to learn what a pair of glasses is made of? The Chamber of Commerce page lists materials, and the Dolomiti Bellunesi site describes unusual objects. Beyond that, the sources give no guide.
Dates in order
- Medieval period: the earliest prototypes the collection covers, Chamber of Commerce.
- 17th century: the invention of the frame, Cadore Vacanze.
- 18th century: first sunglasses, Cadore Vacanze.
- 1800s: the pince-nez, Cadore Vacanze.
- 1878: the first company and lens factory, Cadore Vacanze.
- 1956: the museum’s founding idea, Cadore Dolomiti.
- 1956 to 1959: two exhibitions, Cadore Vacanze.
- 1996: the foundation, Cadore Vacanze and the Chamber of Commerce.
- 2007: the new building, Cadore Vacanze.
What kind of sources these are
Three tourism sites, each promoting the museum, and a press release from a public body promoting the district. We did not read the museum’s own site, which blocked our reader. Several facts appear on only one page, including the 1878 date and the library figure.
What we left out
Prices, opening hours, ticketing, the names of living company presidents on the tourism page, and one section about eyewear culture in other countries. We also left out the objects of popular devotion that one page describes, which belong to a history of religion we are not covering.
Quick answers
Where is the Eyewear Museum? In Pieve di Cadore, in the Dolomites, according to the Treviso-Belluno Chamber of Commerce and the Cadore Dolomiti tourism site.
How many objects does it hold? More than 4,000 artefacts, according to Cadore Dolomiti. More than 3,000 glasses are on display, according to Cadore Vacanze.
Where did the Belluno eyewear industry start? The Dolomiti Bellunesi site places the first optical workshop in Calalzo di Cadore. Cadore Vacanze says the first company dates to 1878.
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Roam first. Shop later.