 The Biblioteca Palafoxiana, considered by some historians the first public library in the Americas, was founded in 1646 by Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza of Puebla, with a gift of 5,000 volumes to the "Colegio de San Juan" (which he had also founded), on the condition that they be made available to the general public, and not just to ecclesiastics and seminarians.More than a century later, Francisco Fabián y Fuero ordered the construction of the premises which currently house the library in the vaulted hall on the Colegio's second floor.This was finished in 1773, and has two levels of bookshelves and a retablo, or altarpiece, a delicate work which houses an image of the Madonna of Trapani, an oil painting presumably modeled on the sculpture carved by the Sicilian master Nino Pisano in the mid-14th century.