The library is located in the monastery inside the Palace of Mafra, with about 36,000 collections from 15th to 19th centuries, which are shelved into different subjects, e.g. theology, medicine, civil law, history, geography, tourism, mathematics, art and music. Among the collections are some of the rare printed works, e.g. a printed work of 1,500 years, and Nuremberg Chronicle. A surprising fact of the library is that it “hires” bats for insect prevention, a method that can be traced back to late 18th century and had been proven effective. The little bats stay in the boxes in the daytime and “work” in the library at night to catch insects, preventing them from damaging the precious collections.
