Fodor's Expert Review Museu do Ipiranga
Greater São Paulo
Editor's Note: This property is currently undergoing renovations.
The oldest museum in town, Museu Paulista da Universidade de São Paulo, or Museu do Ipiranga, occupies an 1890 building constructed to honor Brazil's independence from Portugal, declared in the Ipiranga area in 1822 by then-emperor Dom Pedro I. The huge Pedro Américo oil painting depicting this very moment hangs in the main room of this French-inspired eclectic palace, whose famous gardens were patterned after those of Versailles. Dom Pedro's tomb lies under one of the museum's monuments.
