Photography: Bosc d’Anjou
“Mafra National Palace was once a royal convent. Its library, completed in 1730, contains over 35,000 leather bound volumes. In 1745, the Pope granted the library special permission to accommodate the so-called forbidden books. The library is open only to researchers and academics with “justification” and by prior appointment.”
It is in this way that Melissa Mesku, New York editor and writer, refers to the Mafra Library, in an article published by National Geographic.
“See the 23 most charming libraries in the world” – this is the title of the article that comes with photographs of selected examples from around the world.
Biblioteca Joanina, in Coimbra, is the other Portuguese space that integrates this frame of honor
The article dates back to April 2019, but it is a timeless journalistic piece, if international praise for this iconic element of the set that integrates the world heritage classified by UNESCO were not recurring.
Among references to other spaces of knowledge and breathtaking bookish culture, from Brazil to Germany, there is the Mafra library, whose copies kept on the shelves are protected by bat colonies, as it is the case with the Joanina Library, in Coimbra, which is the other Portuguese library that integrates this honor board.
You can check the original article here.
Esta publicação também está disponível em | This article is also available in: Portuguese (Portugal)
