Foundation The initiative to establish the ABL was taken by and was realised in preparatory meetings that began on 15 December 1896, under the presidency of
Machado de Assis. The statuses of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and the membership of the 40 founding fathers were approved at these meetings, on 28 January 1897. On 20 July of the same year, the inaugural session was held at the
Pedagogium's facility in the centre of
Rio de Janeiro. Without appointed headquarters or financial resources, the solemn meetings of the academy were held at the hall of the
Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading, at the premises of the former National Gymnasium and at the Noble Hall of the Ministry of the Interior. The joint sessions were held at the law firm of Rodrigo Octávio, the ABL's first secretary's, at Quitanda Street, 47. In 1904, the academy obtained the left wing of the Brazilian Silogeo, a governmental building that housed other cultural institutions. It remained there until moving to its own headquarters in 1923.
Petit Trianon In
1923, thanks to the initiative of its president at the time,
Afrânio Peixoto and of the then-French ambassador, Raymond Conty, the
French government donated the French Pavilion building to the academy. The building had been built for the
Independence of Brazil's Centenary International Exposition by the architect
Ange-Jacques Gabriel, between 1762 and 1768 and was a replica of the
Petit Trianon of
Versailles. These facilities have been inscribed as Brazilian
Cultural heritage since Monday, 9 November 1987, by the State Institute of Cultural Heritage (INEPAC), of the Municipal Secretary of Culture of Rio de Janeiro. To the present day, its halls continue to host regular meetings, solemn sessions, commemorative meetings and inauguration sessions of the new academics, as well as the traditional Thursdays' tea. They are also open to the public for guided tours or for special cultural programs, such as chamber music concerts, book launches, conference cycles and theatre plays. In the buildings' first floor hall stands the decorated marble floor, a French crystal
chandelier, a large white porcelain vase from
Sèvres and four English bas-reliefs. Inside the building, the following premises stand out: • the Noble Hall, where the solemn sessions take place; • the French Hall, where the new members traditionally remain alone, in reflection; • the Room, where an oil painting on canvas of a collective of nineteenth-century writers and intellectuals, by the painter
Rodolfo Amoedo, is depicted; • the Hall of the Founders, decorated with period furniture and paintings by
Candido Portinari; • the
Machado de Assis Room, decorated with the writer's desk, books and personal belongings, such as portrait by painter
Henrique Bernardelli; • the Hall of
Romantic Poets, which holds bronze busts of
Castro Alves,
Fagundes Varela,
Gonçalves Dias,
Casimiro de Abreu and
Álvares de Azevedo, by Brazilian-Mexican sculptor
Rodolfo Bernardelli. On the second floor, one can find the Sessions Room, the Library the Tea Room. The Tea Room is the academics' meeting point before the Plenary Session, on Thursdays. The Library is used by scholars and researchers and holds a collection of
Manuel Bandeira.
Dictatorship being invested as member of the academy in 1943 During periods like the
Vargas' totalitarian dictatorship or the
Brazilian military government, the academy's neutrality in choosing proper members dedicated to the literary profession was compromised with the election of politicians with few or no contributions to literature, such as ex-president and dictator
Getúlio Vargas in 1943. The academy is also accused of not having defended culture expression and freedom of speech during both
Vargas' Era and during the
military dictatorship. Both of these ruling periods imposed heavy censorship on
Brazilian culture, including
Brazilian literature. ==Characteristic==