Deep in a Medieval Monastery, This Monk's Extraordinary Invention Transformed into a $186 Billion Global Phenomenon
And turned the country where he lived into the epicenter for an entire industry that today is growing a rapid-fire pace.
Depending on where you stand, it either leans to the right or left.
But the tilt is significant … at one point reaching 5.5 degrees, or 14 feet and 9 inches from its base.
However with modern intervention, engineers managed to scale back the tilt to 12 inches 10 feet.
They did so by removing soil from the northern side (opposite the lean), allowing the tower to settle back slightly, and installed lead counterweights and steel cables.
I’m talking of course about the iconic Leaning Tower of Pisa, which was constructed in 1173. It initially stood vertically aligned until the second floor was added. Because the soil was so soft clay and sand, it started tilting. And by the time is was completed in 1372, the lean was significant.
Pisa, located in Tuscany Italy is well known for its Leaning Tower. But there are other historical sites there that deserve recognition including the Romanesque Cathedral, the circular Baptistery showcase, and the monastery attached to the Church of Santa Caterina d’Alessandria in Pisa.
The church’s origins date back to the early 13th century, with the first mention of a structure on the site appearing in 1211, when it was associated with a hospital. However, the current church began to take shape in 1220, when a Dominican friar named Uguccione Sardo founded it as part of a new Dominican presence in Pisa.
The main structure of the church was built between 1251 and 1300, commissioned by Saint Dominic himself. The building was largely completed by 1261, though its iconic façade—finished in 1326—came later, showcasing the Pisan Gothic style with its white and grey marble stripes, pointed arches, and a central rose window framed by saintly busts.
The church was home to many monks and friars including Alessandro dell Spina. While exact details about his birth date are uncertain, he is believed to have been born in the 13th century, likely in Pisa, and he died there in 1313. Since historical records from this period are sparse, we know only a few things about Alessandro.
He was a modest, skilled and curious man. And you could also say he was a bit of inventor because he also had a knack for mechanics. In fact he is mostly associated with a creating a tool that today an estimated 4 billion people use daily.
I’m one of those people. In fact I wouldn’t be able to write this newsletter with it. Mine are simple and inexpensive. Yet there are people willing to pay as much as $159,000 for one pair.
I’ll tell you more but first let’s talk a little about living in a monastery.
Living Life in the Stone Walls of a Sacred Refuge
The monastery of Santa Caterina was a hub of scholarly activity, and as a friar, Alessandro would have lived under a vow of poverty, supported by the community, with no personal financial ambitions.
Life was governed by a strict schedule, often based on the Rule of St. Augustine for Dominicans. The day revolved around the Liturgy of the Hours, a series of prayers recited at fixed times: Matins (midnight or early morning), Lauds (dawn), Prime (early morning), Terce (mid-morning), Sext (noon), None (mid-afternoon), Vespers (evening), and Compline (before bed). These services, chanted in Latin from the breviary, filled the monastery’s church with song and scripture, creating a rhythm that defined the monks’ existence.
Between prayer times, Alessandro engaged in specific duties, which included intellectual work—studying theology, copying manuscripts, or preparing sermons.
The monastery itself included a church, a cloister (an open courtyard surrounded by covered walkways for meditation), a dormitory or individual cells for sleeping, a refectory for meals, a chapter house for meetings, and workspaces.
The buildings were made of stone, often cold and drafty, with minimal furnishings—wooden benches, straw mattresses, and simple altars. Windows might have lacked glass, covered instead with shutters or oiled parchment, letting in light but little warmth. In winter, the damp Italian climate would have made life harsh, though a fire might burn in the refectory or warming room during the coldest months.
Meals were simple and sparse, reflecting the vow of poverty. The friars typically ate once or twice a day, with a main meal at midday and perhaps a lighter supper. Food consisted of bread, legumes (like lentils or beans), vegetables from the monastery garden, and occasionally fish or cheese.
Meat was rare, reserved for the sick or special feast days, as abstinence was a virtue. Every meal was eaten in silence in the refectory, often while a monk read aloud from scripture or a saint’s life. Water or weak ale was the usual drink; wine might appear on holidays.
While it was spiritually fulfilling, it was a hard life. The monks and friars endured damn cold walls, laying and sitting on rough wooden furniture and reading with only bits of daylight that came through the small windows.
Imagine reading through hundreds of scriptures and manuscripts with very little light … and then imagine doing that if you had poor vision. It’d be hard and you wouldn’t mind having a little help.
Rock On, Rock Off
Since not many records exist on Alessandra’s life, I can’t tell you if he had difficulty with his vision or perhaps some of his colleagues did, but either way, he was determined to make reading easier.
Being a mechanic, Alessandra decided to make a tool that would aid in reading scriptures and writing sermons, particularly during times in the monastery where little light was not readily available.
Since he couldn’t travel outside the confines of his monastery, Alessandro had to use resources close by. Those resources included rocks, crystals and quartz. Back then there wasn’t much know about the rocks, especially crystals and quartz, which seemed a bit magical and mysterious to the monks.
But Alessandro saw their potential in creating a tool that would aid the monks in performing their daily reading task. In fact he knew that he if polished them long and deep enough, they could become slightly translucent.
To do this he used a foot-powered lathe or a bow drill, common in medieval workshops. The grinding process was slow and imprecise, leaving Alessandro to rely on trial and error to achieve the right amount of polishing so that quartz acted as a magnifier.
Once that was achieved, the next step in the process was making a frame to hold the highly polished pieces of rock. Alessandro crafted the frames from either wood, bone, horn, or occasionally metal (like iron or copper). Adding a small slit in the frame ensured the bits of polished rocked stayed in place.
The finished item, which he referred to as spectacles were held by hand near the user’s eyes. No matter what dim the light, reading was now much easier especially for monk’s with poor eyesight.
While Alessandro is credited with making the first pair of eyeglasses, it was his home country of Italy that eventually dominated the market.
Right on The Bulls Eye
These early designs—simple magnifying lenses riveted together and balanced on the nose—marked Italy as the cradle of modern eyewear. However this head start gave Italian artisans centuries to refine their techniques, establishing a foundation of expertise that would prove hard to rival.
For instance by the 15th century, cities like Florence and Venice emerged as hubs for eyeglass production. Florence, in particular, became the first city to mass-produce eyeglasses, fueled by a growing demand for vision correction as literacy spread across Europe, thanks to the printing press and the rise of universities.
Italian guilds and workshops played a crucial role here, fostering a culture of apprenticeship that preserved and enhanced eyeglass-making skills over generations.
By the 19th century and with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, it was now possible to move from hand-crafted eyewear to mass produced via machinery. This shift also made eyeglasses more affordable and widely available to just about everyone who needed a pair.
While Alessandro is the man who started the eyeglass movement, it’s another man from a small town in Italy who completely revolutionized the industry.
Born on May 22, 1935, in Milan, Italy Leonardo Del Vecchio’s early life was marked by hardship: his father who was a street vendor passed away before his birth, and his mother, unable to support him, placed him in an orphanage at the age of 7.
And it’s here he stayed for several years, surrounded by other orphaned children and raised mostly by nuns.
At age 14, Leonardo left the orphanage and began working as an apprentice at a factory that produced molds for auto parts and eyeglass frames. The apprenticeship taught him metal working and the manufacturing process. But it also provided a way for him to put food on the table for his mother and five siblings.
While he continued to work during the day at the factory, Leonardo took design and engraving classes at the prestigious Brera Academy in the evening.
With knowledge of manufacturing eyeglasses and designing as well, when he turned 26, Leonardo decided to form his own company Luxottica. The name is a combination of Latin, with lux meaning light; and Italian with ottica meaning optics.
He made the decision to set up his shop in Agordo - a town within the Province of Belluno, Italy. The choice of location was well thought out, as Belluno was home to many of the biggest names in the eyeglass industry.
But also Agordo was historically well known for its skilled labor and offered free land and economic support to young entrepreneurs for establishing new businesses within the town.
Initially, his company focused solely on manufacturing eyeglass components, such as frames and lenses something Leonardo knew how to do. However over the next ten years, Leonardo decided his company could become an even bigger play in the eyeglass market if it evolved from a modest workshop into a full-fledged eyewear manufacturer.
And that’s exactly what happened.
But his real goal was to oversee the entire process from manufacturing and design to distribution. In other words, Leonardo wanted his company to become a predominant force in the eyeglass industry.
Eye See You Everywhere
And so in 1976, Leonardo made the bold decision to stop making frames for other firms and launched its own eye wear brand.
After developing his brand of eyeglasses, Leonardo was eager to showcase his newest creation. And he got the opportunity he was hoping for in the form of MIDO - the leading international optical-industry trade fair in Milan.
The MIDO exhibition was the ideal platform for Luxottica's glasses to make their debut. It attracted the best names in the eyeglass industry, and as a new and emerging company, Luxottica aroused the participants' interest.
The enthusiasm generated by the new product was contagious. Leonardo Del Vecchio and his colleagues were rewarded for their hard work as the demand for the new glasses rose drastically.
The exhibition was a success, and Leonardo and his team returned to Agordo with numerous orders to fulfill. The success at the exhibition marked a significant milestone for Luxottica and boosted the budding business immensely.
However the one thing Leonardo didn’t have was a direct line of distribution for his eyeglasses. But he already a solution in mind … in 1974 he acquired Scarrone, SA a wholesale distributor of eyewear.
His next breakthrough would come via the world of fashion. In 1988, Leonardo signed a licensing agreement with fashion icon Giorgio Armani. This gave Leonardo a huge foothold in the eyewear industry.
But this wouldn’t be his only big break. You see sales from the United States already made for more than 50% of Luxottica’s total revenue. But there was still more to be gained by further expanding in the U.S.
Thus, the company made its official debut in the U.S. in 1981 by acquiring Avant-Garde Optics Inc. one of the main distributors of eyewear at the time.
Consequently, Luxottica’s market share increased from 2% to 7% - a significant gain as it was enough to put the company at the head of the eyewear industry.
Already having a presence in the U.S., Luxottica’s executives wanted an even bigger part of the American market. So in 1995 they acquired LensCrafters. This put the company in every aspect of the eyewear market from manufacturing, design, distribution and retail.
They even penetrated the sunglass market acquiring household brands such as RayBan and Oakley.
Leonardo turned his eyeglass company Luxottica into an industry juggernaut with annual sales estimated at $28.4 billion.
And to think, the entire eyeglass market began almost 764 years ago with a monk on a mission to help people read with ease.
Amazing Quotes from Amazing People
“Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” - Sir Richard Branson
Sandra, this post is really interesting. You taught me some stuff today. Not only in facts - but also in writing structure. Thank you!