Ouro Preto Historical City Picture 12

More information on Ouro Preto Historical City Photo by: Jay Woodworth

Ouro Preto is located 98 km from the capital Belo Horizonte. The historical city, a World Heritage by UNESCO, is a masterpiece of colonial architecture and stage of the Minas Gerais Conspiracy.

It was elevated to a village in 1711 with the name Vila Rica. In 1720 it was chosen as capital of the new captaincy of Minas Gerais. In 1823, after the Independence of Brazil, Vila Rica was awarded the title of Imperial City, given by D. Pedro I of Brazil, officially became the capital of the then province of Minas Gerais, and became known as Imperial city of Ouro Preto. In 1839 was created the School of Pharmacy and in 1876 the School of Mines. It hosted the revolutionary movement known as Minas Conspiracy. It was the capital of the province and later the state until 1897. The ancient capital of Minas retained much of its colonial monuments and in 1933 was elevated to National Heritage, and five years later, listed by the institution that today is the IPHAN. On September 5, 1980, the fourth session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO held in Paris, Ouro Preto was declared Cultural Patrimony of Humanity.

No other Brazilian city has accumulated so many historical facts relevant to the construction of national memory as this vast municipality.

Two camps have distinguished themselves out of the mountains: the Camp of Our Lady of Pilar and Arraial de Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Antonio Dias. Its two chapels, situated in the vicinity of gold-bearing streams, were predominant role in the evolution of the urban core who then drew greater.

Thus we see the evolution of this city, curious and restless, the chapels of the surrounding mountains to the bottoms of valleys, the valleys of the funds back to the top of the mountains. This up / down the hills as well as transport and technical people, reinvented himself in the styles: baroque chapels of old simpleton, the baroque splendor of the matrices, the baroque parish proud and taciturn, the curvilinear rococo elegance of San Francisco and Caramel . And in the Square, converging point? The facade of the House of Chamber and Chain neoclassical sucks air, while the Palace, the oldest, its plant inherits the ancient fortress luso. Not to mention the eclecticism that in later times scored the streets and alleys of other influences. How much historical and architectural heritage in a city that, far from being unified and homogeneous, back in his own heart the brand of heterodoxy and the mixture!

http://www.prefeituradeouropreto.com.br/acidade/historia.php

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