#fy | alexandria

How often do you get to witness a reunion 400 years in the making? Joan of Archives shares one of our rarest treasures: a 1583 edition of Matthioli’s herbal, bursting with hand-etched wood-block plant illustrations. Best of all, State Library was able to reunite the book with the original woodblock used to print the cornflower on page 462. The block was inked again in the 1980s to create new impressions, and when the old and new prints sit side by side, you can see the impact of centuries carve