World of the Book

Since 2005, the Library’s annual exhibition has displayed more than 5000 of some of the rarest and most unusual items in the Library's Rare Books and State Collections.

In celebration of the exhibition's 20th anniversary, 20 iconic items that were featured in the inaugural exhibition will be on display, including a manuscript made for Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1478 when he was at the height of his power as the de facto ruler Florence, and the oldest book in Australia, De institutione musica (The Principles of Music), a seminal work on the theory of music dated to c.1100 CE.

Travel through history and marvel at a nearly 4000-year old cuneiform tablet; an example of the Hyakumantō Darani, the oldest dateable printed texts in the world; stunning examples of colour theory, including works by Leonardo da Vinci and Josef Albers; the evolution of manga from Hokusai to Astro Boy; fan art inspired by Andy Griffiths’s Treehouse series and much more.