Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading

The main reading room of the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura in central Rio de Janeiro, photographed in 2013. Portuguese immigrants founded the reading society on May 14, 1837, and its neo-Manueline home, designed in Lisbon by Rafael da Silva e Castro with the Jerónimos Monastery as its model, was officially inaugurated on December 22, 1888. The upper structure of the book hall, first planned in wood, was built in glass and iron instead, which is why daylight falls through the colored ceiling onto the carved, gilded tiers of shelves. It opens to visitors on weekdays.