Biblioteca Palafoxiana

In 1646 Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza gave his 5,000 books to the diocese of Puebla on one revolutionary condition: anyone who could read must be allowed in. That clause makes the Palafoxiana the first public library of the Americas, and its hall - built out in 1773 - survives as one of the most beautiful rooms on the continent: forty-three metres of cedar, coloyote and ayacahuite shelving in three tiers, gold-lettered spines rising to a vaulted ceiling, with the gilded altarpiece of the Virgin of Trapani closing the perspective like the apse of a book cathedral. The collection grew to some 45,000 volumes - nine incunabula among them, including a 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle - covering theology, medicine, botany and the sciences a colonial elite argued over. UNESCO entered it in the Memory of the World register in 2005. Visitors walk the central aisle under the tiers; the books stay shelved in their centuries-old order, consulted now by scholars under glass and lamplight.

History

On 6 September 1646 Bishop Palafox y Mendoza gave 5,000 of his own items to the Colegio de San Juan, writing that the city should have "a public library, where all sorts of people will be able to study as they wish". More than a century later Bishop Francisco Fabián y Fuero built the present hall, finished in 1773 as a 43-metre vaulted room, and a third level of shelves was added in the mid-19th century as the collection grew (Wikipedia, Biblioteca Palafoxiana).

What to look for

• The great hall - three cedar tiers of gold-spined volumes.
• The Trapani altarpiece - the gilded Virgin closing the room.
• The incunabula cases - printing's first decades on display.
• The reading aisle - onyx-topped tables down the center.

When to go

Any day but Monday; morning light through the high windows is the photographer's window. It pairs in a single block with the cathedral and Casa de la Cultura patios.

Things to know

It is one sublime room - most visits run well under an hour. Books cannot be handled; this is architecture and atmosphere, not browsing. Flash and tripods are barred.

Nearby

The cathedral next door, the Amparo museum three blocks south and the sweets street of 6 Oriente within a short walk.

Key facts