A Rich Collection at the Sao Paulo Museum Colecao Mario de Andrade

The Sao Paulo Museum Colecao Mario de Andrade was originally founded in 1927 as the Library Mario Andrade, in honor of Mario Raul de Morais Andrade’s contribution to Brazilian literature during his lifetime. He published numerous books and participated in the famed Week of Modern Art in 1922, and later would help to create the Department of Culture in Sao Paulo – and it was this Department which would realize the need for a large local library that the citizens could use as a resource to protect their history.

The creation of a Sao Paulo library was the realization of Andrade’s plans to celebrate the achievements of modern art and culture within the city. It wasn’t until 1960 that the library received its name, and because it houses many examples of his work, it has been referred to as the Sao Paulo Museum Colecao Mario de Andrade in the past. There are plenty of major acquisitions here from other writers and artists as well, and it is estimated that the library and museum holds more than 3.2 million documents in total.

In the mid-40s, the Sao Paulo Museum Colecao Mario de Andrade received donations of manuscripts, maps, works of art, journals, and rare books that belonged to such famous individuals as Carvalho Franco, Maynard de Araujo, Paul Prado, and Paulo Duarte. The general collection houses over 200,000 books in many subject areas, including many encyclopedias and dictionaries – and that’s nothing compared to the Rare Works collection. Here, there are over 40,000 book volumes, 20,000 journals, over 3000 manuscripts, plus original photographs, cards, postcards, historic coins, drawings, and engravings.

Visitors and locals are welcome to visit the rare books collection under special supervision, since some of these works are so precious that one must actually wear special gloves to read the book! For example, there are 9 copies of Incunacula which were printed before 1500, as well as 1477’s Suma Theological and the Chronicle of Nuremberg from 1493.

The Sao Paulo Museum Colecao Mario de Andrade is scheduled for restoration work in February 2009, to ensure that all the pieces here are held in proper conservation and are displayed in a manner that both protects them but also allows for visitors to admire and appreciate many of the rare items. After all, in order to preserve the memory of Mario de Andrade with honor, the library will need to keep everything up to date and at the height of modernity – and since he contributed so much to the literature and cultural development of Brazil and Sao Paulo, you would be hard-pressed to find someone in the city who disagrees.

In order to visit the library and museum, visiting hours are between 9am and 9pm, while on Saturdays the hours are reduced until 6pm. For more information, please phone (11)3256-5270.

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