The Oliveira Lima Library (also known as the Ibero American Library) is located at

The Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Roman Catholic research university in Washington, D.C. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by U.S. ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

. It was founded in 1916, when Brazilian diplomat and scholar Manoel de Oliveira Lima and his wife, Flora de Oliveira Lima officially donated their private library to the university after obtaining an agreement that the library would remain a separate, autonomous facility and that Manoel would be the first librarian. The initial collection included 40,000 volumes of books primarily focused on colonial

Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese Brazilians ( pt, luso-brasileiros) are Brazilians whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Portugal. Most of the Portuguese who arrived throughout the centuries in Brazil sought economic opportunities. Although present since t ...

history, literature and culture. Many of the rare books are original sources, on Portuguese philology and etymology, which complement the other volumes in the collection. After establishing the library and setting it up, it opened in 1923 with Manoel serving as librarian until his death in 1928. Upon his death, Flora took over managing the collection. Under her direction, the collection grew to 58,000 volumes. In addition, it contains around 200,000 pages of correspondence; 6 dozen albums of newspaper clippings of the couple’s various diplomatic posts which included Lisbon,

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, Caracas,

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

and Stockholm; and around 600 works of art including engravings, maps, paintings, sculptures and watercolors. Some of the artwork includes a landscape of

Pernambuco Pernambuco () is a States of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast region of the country. With an estimated population of 9.6 million people as of 2020, making it List of Brazilian states by population, sev ...

painted by Dutch artist

Frans Post Frans Janszoon Post (17 November 1612 – 17 February 1680) was a painter during the Dutch Golden Age. He was the first European artist to paint landscapes of the Americas, during and after the period of Dutch Brazil In 1636 he traveled to ...

(1612-1680); a screen showing the Largo do Machado in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

by Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (1755-1830); a bronze bust of Pedro I by sculptor Marc Ferrez (1788-1850); the only existing color copy of ''Rerum per Octenium in Brasilia'' by Gaspar Barleus (1584-1648); the first book in French about Brazil, ''La Singularité de la France Anthartique'', by Franciscan priest

André Thévet André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew, and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries. It is a variation ...

(1502-1590), among many others. In a digitizing project completed in conjunction with a partnership between

Gale Cengage Learning Gale is a global provider of research and digital learning resources. The company is based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007. The company, formerly known as Gale Research and the Gale G ...

and the library, most of the 19th- and 20th-century pamphlets in the collection have been digitized. Some 17,000 Portuguese and Brazilian books and pamphlets are available in the digital collection. According to restrictions imposed by the wills of the de Oliveira Limas, none of the materials may leave the premises. The Oliveira Lima Library is located in the underground level of Mullen Library at 620 Michigan Avenue N.E., Washington, DC 20064.

References

External links

* * * Henrich, Nathalia (2018). Oliveira Lima and the Oliveira Lima Library at the Catholic University of America {{DEFAULTSORT:Oliveira Lima Library 1923 establishments in Washington, D.C. Libraries in Washington, D.C. Libraries established in 1923 Research libraries in the United States Catholic University of America Cultural history of Brazil