
Umbrellas are everywhere. We carry them when it rains, we’ve patio umbrellas over our picnic tables, we take beach umbrellas to the shore, and we stand under market umbrellas at outdoor kiosks and street vendors’ carts; but this wasn’t always the case.
Centuries ago, when umbrellas first made the scene, no ordinary person may even dream of owning one. In the past, they certainly were among the most significant indications of royalty, and were prohibited for use by anyone but members of nobility.
While nobody can pinpoint the exact date or place when the initial one was created, historians concur that umbrellas, or parasols, have existed for a large number of years. There is evidence of these used in the courts of China and Egypt,
between 1100 and 1200 b.c., along with Greece and Rome, where early types of the patio umbrella were employed for shade. Umbrellas have already been found depicted in the art and garden umbrella with stand price artifacts of ancient Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and China.
The phrase, umbrella, is on the basis of the Latin, umbra, meaning shade. Its diminutive form, umbella, was modified, to ombrella, in Italy, where it’s first known to have been used, in 1611. The phrase, parasol, from the Old Italian, parare, which means, to shield or reduce the chances of, and sole, meaning sun, was originally utilized in 1660.