By José P. Torrealba – Ayuntamiento – Oficina de Turismo, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29801984

The oldest library in the Americas was founded in 1646 by Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, bishop of Puebla, Mexico. He was a lover of books, and is quoted as having said,

“He who succeeds without books is in an inconsolable darkness, on a mountain without company“

Biblioteca Palafoxiana hosts 45059 volumes dating from the 15th, 16th,17th, 19th, centuries and the smallest number from the 20th. Most books and manuscripts of the Biblioteca Palafoxiana are written in dead languages: Hebrew, Latin, Sanskrit, Chaldean and Greek, another part of the collection is written in Nahuatl, and very few pieces can be read in Spanish.

By Miguel Angel Alvarez Bernardo – https://www.flickr.com/photos/miguelalvarez/4095979733/, CC BY-SA 2.0,

By Luis Alvaz – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132153157

According to the excellent Mexico in Depth: “With a clear baroque and carved walls, their shelves were commissioned by Bishop Francisco Fabian y Fuero in 1773 (expanded to a third level in 1800) are made of finely carved cedar, ayacahuite (a native white pine) and coloyote wood. It also has a gold altarpiece with three floors in one end of the room, which occupies a long arched hallway, where reposes an oil painting of the Virgin of Trapani, from the fourteenth century, attributed to Italian sculptor Nino Pisano, under which reads the phrase “Maria sedes Sapientia” translated “Mary Throne of Wisdom”.

By Luis Alvaz – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,