Situated above the Casa de la Cultura and founded in 1646, Biblioteca Palafoxiana was the first public library in the Americas. For this, Palafoxiana has been listed on the Unesco Memory of the World register. The handsome library houses thousands of rare books on its gorgeous shelves – carved cedar and white pine – including one of the earliest New World dictionaries and the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle, with more than 2000 engravings.