The Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (BNP) is the Portuguese national library, the biggest Portuguese library, and the guardian of Portuguese bibliographic heritage, fulfilling the functions of legal deposit and copyright.

The library was created by Decree of 29 February 1796, as the Royal Public Library of the Court.
The library’s objective was to allow the public access to the court’s collections, thus bucking the trend of the time only available to scholars and sages could access the treasures, manuscripts, paintings, and books of the royal court.
Nowadays, the two main objectives of Nacional Portuguese Library are to link the library to the most innovative information systems and to put BNP on par with similar international institutions, continuing to serve readers, researchers and the general public.
Achieving these two objectives and doing everything we can to further internationalise our institution, remaining as a reference in the broader context of Portuguese culture, is our mission.