More than just books, the National Library rolls out the carpet to visitors with exhibitions telling of the powerful role Spain has played in world history.
Close to the centre of town, and not far from the Plaza de Cibeles, the National Library is one of Madrid's sometimes overlooked attractions. But if you miss the National Library (or Biblioteca Nacional de España), you'll miss out on more than just 15 million books, and hundreds of thousands of manuscripts, newspapers, magazines and pictures.You'll fail to connect with a library hooked into one of the most vibrant cultural love-affairs of the last millennium – the flow of ideas between the Arab and Western worlds, that finally put Europe back in touch with its Classical heritage. The National Library has also managed to gather a huge number of works from Spain's medieval past. It was a time the Moors translated classic Greek texts, and when Jews translated the Arabic back into Latin – so bringing the Greek treatises, philosophies and science into the hands of European scholars. That's how a Renaissance was born. That story is just one many told in the Library's exhibitions, which range over everything from Islamic Spain, to the discovery of the New World, to Spain's radical literature of the Civil War. Peel back the cover of any episode in Spain's intriguing history, and the written word is sure to be lurking behind it. And the Library is well worth seeing up-close, especially for the grandeur of its huge reading rooms, opened in the late 19th century. The Library has recently opened a museum dedicated to books and the art of literary communication. It has exhibits looking at the origins of writing and the history of knowledge and printing and it also has the Hall of the Muses. This is where some of Library's rarest and most treasured books, manuscripts and folios are displayed. Here in Madrid's National Library, you really can have history just under your fingertips.
