In the 21st century we are still hearing news about banned, discarded, censored books... And also in countries that are not that far away from us.

That is why we are not surprised by the exhibition that opened on November 24, at the National Library of Spain under the title: “Malos libros: la censura en la España moderna.”  This exhibition offers visitors a reflection on censorship and its impact on the bibliographic heritage, culture, and history of Spain.

The exhibition invites you to explore a part of Spain's past, where the protagonists are those "bad books", which for different reasons were banned, discarded, censored, damaged, burned, walled up or thrown into the pits of oblivion, in a period that begins at the end of the 15th century and ends in the first decades of the 19th century.

In Spain, as in other European countries, powerful mechanisms were established to monitor dissent, a regulated censorship that is addressed in this exhibition. The National Library of Spain has among its collections numerous examples of how censorship was practiced between the 16th and 19th centuries, as it keeps very unique collections, such as that of the bibliophile Usoz, or those from the proceeding Council of the Supreme and General Inquisition, whose Internal work materials were deposited in the National Library in 1848.

Continue reading here