It is located in Rio de Janeiro, the capital city of Brazil from 1763 to 1960, more specifically at Cinelândia square.

Therefore, on 29 October 1810, a date that was assigned to the official founding of the National Library, Prince Regent John (later King John VI of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves) issued a decree which provided that a royal library should be established from the funds of the royal treasury.

Officially established, the library continued to have a significant expansion through purchases, donations, mainly, and "tips", that is, by the obligatory delivery of a copy of all printed material in the typographic offices of Portugal (By decree of 12 September 1805) and in the Royal Printing, installed in Rio de Janeiro.

In 1858, the library was transferred to the Passeio street, number 60, in Lapa square, and installed in the building that had the purpose to better shelter its collection.

Based on this, his current building was designed, which had its cornerstone launched on 15 August 1905, during the government of Rodrigues Alves.

The building of the National Library, whose project is signed by the military engineer Sousa Aguiar, has an eclectic style, in which neoclassical and Art Nouveau elements are mixed, and contains ornaments by artists such as Eliseu Visconti, Henrique and Rodolfo Bernardelli, Modesto Brocos and Rodolfo Amoedo.

In 1911, Manoel Cicero Peregrino da Silva started a national union catalog for all Brazilian libraries.

[8] It features images related to Brazil's history and people from the 19th century, including photographs by Moritz Lamberg.