Tiradentes Palace

The statue in front of you shows Tiradentes, hero of the Inconfidência Mineira. The location is no accident: this is where the jail stood in which he spent his last years before the gallows.

1The Old Jail

From the seventeenth century, this site held a building that combined the town council and a prison, known as the Cadeia Velha. Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, the second lieutenant nicknamed Tiradentes, was held here until his execution on 21 April 1792. After independence, the remodelled building housed Brazil's first Constituent Assembly, which Pedro I dissolved by force in November 1823, on the so-called «night of agony».

2A palace for the Republic

The old jail was demolished in 1922 and replaced by this palace, designed by Archimedes Memória and Francisque Cuchet and inaugurated on 6 May 1926. It housed the Chamber of Deputies until 1960, when the capital moved to Brasília, and then the state legislature. During Vargas's Estado Novo it was home to the regime's propaganda department.

The statue, by Francisco de Andrade, shows a civic Tiradentes, without the noose around his neck: an image that went on to become his official portrait.

3What to look for

• The Tiradentes statue, bearded and in a tunic, unveiled with the palace.
• The sculpture groups along the top, allegories of Independence and the Republic.
• The dome: inside, it recreates the sky on the night of 15 November 1889.