diff --git a/src/cairo-scaled-font.c b/src/cairo-scaled-font.c
index 7a47219..aa89d25 100644
--- a/src/cairo-scaled-font.c
+++ b/src/cairo-scaled-font.c
@@ -334,7 +334,7 @@ _cairo_scaled_font_keys_equal (const void *abstract_key_a, const void *abstract_
  * separately is probably not what we want anyway. Would probably be
  * much better to have a single cache for glyphs with random
  * replacement across all glyphs of all fonts. */
-#define MAX_GLYPHS_CACHED_PER_FONT 256
+#define MAX_GLYPHS_CACHED_PER_FONT 4096
 
 /*
  * Basic cairo_scaled_font_t object management
@@ -350,6 +350,8 @@ _cairo_scaled_font_init (cairo_scaled_font_t               *scaled_font,
 {
     cairo_matrix_t inverse;
     cairo_status_t status;
+    static int inited = 0;
+    static int cache_size;
 
     status = cairo_font_options_status ((cairo_font_options_t *) options);
     if (status)
@@ -369,9 +371,26 @@ _cairo_scaled_font_init (cairo_scaled_font_t               *scaled_font,
     if (status)
 	return status;
 
+    if (!inited) {
+	char *str;
+	int have_size;
+
+	inited = 1;
+	have_size = 0;
+
+	str = getenv ("CAIRO_SCALED_GLYPH_CACHE_SIZE");
+	if (str) {
+	    if (sscanf (str, "%d", &cache_size) == 1)
+		have_size = 1;
+	}
+
+	if (!have_size)
+	    cache_size = 256;
+    }
+
     scaled_font->glyphs = _cairo_cache_create (_cairo_scaled_glyph_keys_equal,
 					       _cairo_scaled_glyph_destroy,
-					       MAX_GLYPHS_CACHED_PER_FONT);
+					       cache_size);
     if (scaled_font->glyphs == NULL)
 	return CAIRO_STATUS_NO_MEMORY;