DECEMBER 2024 - JUNE 2025

Where books live

There are kings and princesses in its history, but this isn't (just) a fairytale library

The casual visitor who only glances at the more than thirty thousand volumes, elegantly arranged on the shelves of the rococo bookcases, from the entrance of the majestic Library of the Mafra National Palace — and who knows the reputation for luxury and ostentation of the 43 years of King João V’s reign — could be forgiven for thinking that it was designed to show off and impress ambassadors; but they would be mistaken. Virtually every single volume of the library was opened, read, studied, and put in place again, both by its users — who, explains Sérgio Gorjão, director of the Palace, were ‘members of the Royal Household, princes in their formative years — especially the infantas, in preparation for marriage —, members of the court, also the students of the Mafra studies and the religious community’ —, as well as the technicians and librarians who, today, devote themselves to their study and conservation with a passion as knowledgeable as it is dedicated.

The librarian Teresa Amaral shows us, repeating the gestures of a reader of the past, how some of these volumes are worn at the top of the spine from having been taken out for reading or consultation, today undergoing careful restoration. By opening a magnificent 18th-century atlas, she draws our attention to the quality and resistance of the paper of old.

Sérgio Gorjão also explains how the library is organised: ‘In the northern section, furthest from the entrance, religion, the sacred. In the middle, gazettes, philosophy, dictionaries, frequently consulted works. Finally, in the southern part, the profane works.’

Of natural interest is the place, in the south area, where the ‘forbidden books’ are kept: ‘Those on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, those that dealt with political issues, alchemy, esotericism’. The library’s collection includes countless treasures: ‘The first translation of the Koran into Latin, incunabula, manuscripts, books of hours from the 15th century’. The director of the National Palace doesn’t mince words in praising the cultural side of a monarch who is so often judged only by his more mundane aspects: ‘A very interested and knowledgeable king, well versed in canon law and other matters. It was he who led his daughter, Maria Bárbara, Queen of Spain by marriage to Ferdinand VI, in the diplomatic manoeuvres between Portugal and Spain. King João V can be seen as a peace maker’.

With everything that distinguishes it as a cultural and edified heritage site, the Library of the Mafra National Palace shares with the public libraries of today its vocation as a guardian of memory and knowledge. 

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