Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading

The Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading (Portuguese: Real Gabinete Português de Leitura) is a library and lusophone cultural institution, is located in Luís de Camões Street, number 30, in the center of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is listed by the State Institute of Cultural Heritage. Elected the fourth most beautiful library in the world by Time magazine, the Cabinet has the largest collection of Portuguese literature outside Portugal. History The institution was founded in 1837 by a group of forty-three Portuguese immigrants, political refugees, to promote culture among the Portuguese community in the then capital of the Empire of Brazil. It was the first association of this community in the city. The building of the current headquarters, designed by the Portuguese architect Rafael da Silva e Castro, was erected between 1880 and 1887 in Neo-Manueline style. This architectural style evokes the exuberant Gothic-Renaissance style in force at the time of the Portuguese discoveries, named Manueline in Portugal for having coincided with the reign of King Manuel (1495–1521). The Emperor Pedro II (1831–1889) laid the cornerstone of the building on 10 June 1880, and his daughter, Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil, together with her husband, the Prince Gaston, Count of Eu, inaugurated it on 10 September 1887.