The library was created in 1890 as part of an integrated institutional project that João Barbosa Rodrigues created when he became director of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden. Its collection owes it origins to a donation from Dom Pedro II. When the royal family went into exile in 1889, Dom Pedro II donated the works of his private collection to Barbosa Rodrigues. It was this same emperor who provided financial support to enable the publication of the monumental work Flora Brasiliensis.

The results of these trips were the basis for magnificent and pioneering individual publications on Brazilian biodiversity.

But none of them match the vastness and scope of what would become our most celebrated botanical work. coordinated by the same Martius, Flora Brailiensis was born and was only possible because of these great trips.

The library’s collection is composed of books, works of reference, theses and dissertations, scientific periodicals and over 4000 rare works. The oldest of such works is a 1565 edition of Commentarii in sex libros Pedacci Dioscordis Anazarbei De medica materia, by Pietro Andrea Mattioli. The book contains illustrations and descriptions of plants, animals and minerals that were used for therapeutic ends in the sixteenth century.

In the nineteenth century, the works that are significant and worthy of note are the books and atlases of the travellers who journeyed through Brazil and Latin American countries in search of knowledge about the flora and fauna of the New World. The reader has access to such priceless works as those of Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius and Joahann Baptist von Spix, as well as works by Auguste de Sainte-Hilaire, Louis Agassiz, Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland.

The publications of Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius and Joahann Baptist von Spix, the fruit of their journey to Brazil, occupy an outstanding position in the collection because of their great contribution to science and the quality and beauty of their illustrations.

Throughout the 130 years of its existence, the Barbosa Rodrigues Library’s collection has been carefully arranged by illustrious directors of Rio de Janeiro’s Botanical Garden, in particular João Barbosa Rodrigues, Antônio Pacheco Leão and Paulo Campos Porto, who gave priority to the acquisition of important collections of national and foreign scientific periodicals, some of which can be found no other place in Brazil except this library.