...aaand we're back, with Saints in Specs.

So, Friday, I went on the radio to talk about glasses and identity for another bloggy project I co-write and edit. I'd never done that (radio, I mean) before. I can see why Libby over at Whittled Down likes it so much.

I learned that there are headphones for which my head is just too small, adjustable sizing be damned.

I also learned that the saints used to wear glasses. Well, sort of.

David Fleishman, a retired opthamologist who runs this website, joined in the conversation with an enthusiastic dose of glasses history. Because of him, I'm now officially on the "Hey, USPS. Get Benjamin Franklin on a Stamp, Already" bandwagon. No, really.

But the most interesting bit of knowledge, to me, was the practice of painters bespectacling saints who lived before the invention of glasses. Apparently, glasses have been a sign of intelligence and wisdom for a very long time. Painters used glasses as an easy sign of the elite knowledge attributed to these saints.

It seems the most common saint to have a retroactive correction of myopia is Saint Jerome. He's the one who translated the Bible into Latin for the first time. According to Fleischman, who was interviewed on this subject for the Catholic Digest, St Jerome was adopted by the French as the patron Saint of spectacle-makers in addition to his more well-known patronage of scholarly pursuits.

(I spy, with my little eye, a pair of spectacles on the lectern. Image: "St. Jerome in his Study." DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO)

I'm kind of in awe of Fleishman's image captions in the religious section of his website. He guesses the make of the glasses in the paintings, often instead of listing the artist of the work:

"Bow spectacles, probably leather framed, rest on his desk."

"Type 2 Rivet Spectacles."

"Single Wire Nose Spectacles"

"Glasses are absent in this work."

You can view the rest of the slideshow yourself here.