The most beautifully obscure library in the world?

Just looking at this photostream makes me feel like I’m in an Umberto Eco novel!

This is the Real Gabinete Portugues de Leitura (Royal Portuguese Reading Room) in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Founded in 1837 with books sent over from Portugal, it remains a functional public library today. And yet I’d never heard of it. It’s not even listed in the Wikipedia (en) article on landmark libraries. Scandal!

More beautiful library eye-candy:

The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World by Guillaume de Laubier, Jacques Bosser, and James Billington.

Libraries by Candida Hofer and (gasp!) Umberto Eco.

(And if you haven’t read The Name of the Rose, do that too).