Historic Wood Blocks

thingiverse

These are high-resolution scans of two sixteenth-century Austrian woodcuts of plants, ideal for demonstrating printing techniques in courses on printing history or science. Overview and Background Commissioned by a Viennese doctor and naturalist, Pietro Andreas Mattioli, these blocks were originally designed for a mid-16th century publication of an ancient treatise on medicinal plants by Dioscorides. Translated into Czech and German, with later versions in Latin and Italian, this book was supported by Hapsburg emperor Ferdinand I. Mattioli partnered with Giorgio Liberale de Udine and Wolfgang Meyerpeck to create these blocks, out of which over 600 were produced. Considered some of the finest woodblock prints of their time, two are now part of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Rare Book and Manuscript Library collection. Lesson Plan and Activity After 3D-printing this object, it can be used to demonstrate historic book illustration processes in a straightforward manner. The scan is high-resolution enough to show the original carver's knife marks. Materials Needed The file (one of two) A printed image from the block (one of two)