The Palácio de Friburgo (English: Palace of Friburgo; Dutch: Vrijburg) also known as the Palácio das Torres (Palace of the Towers), was an official residence built by Count John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen between 1640 and 1642 in what was then Mauritsstad, the capital of the Dutch colony of Nova Holanda ("New Holland") - now the city of Recife, capital of the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.

[1] The Palace of Friburgo was surrounded by a botanical garden, in which a wide variety of flora and fauna from the tropics were gathered, and served as a source for the first treatises on the natural history of Brazil, such as the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae by the naturalists Willem Piso and Georg Marcgrave.

The botanical garden also included a large fish pond, a dovecote, various types of birds and other animals such as parrots, macaws, swans, guineafowls, peacocks, tortoises, anteaters, tapirs, rabbits, marmosets, pacas, howler monkeys, among others, most of which were donated by locals who wanted to please the count.

[8][9][10] In the 17th century, there was no Imperador Pedro II street (and its internal extension to the República Square), nor Martins de Barros avenue and the area between them, the result of later land reclamation.

[1] On April 5, 1742, the Viceroy of Brazil, André de Melo e Castro, sent a letter to the governor of Pernambuco, Henrique Luís Pereira Freire, regretting that the palace had been handed over "... to the violent and careless use of the soldiers, who in a short time will reduce that factory to total dissolution, but I regret even more that, with it, a memory will also be ruined...", in what is considered to be the first and most notable action aimed at preserving historical heritage on Brazilian soil.

[1][10] The virtual model of the Palace of Friburgo and its surroundings, developed between 2013 and 2015 at the request of Itaú Cultural in São Paulo, is the most modern and complete reproduction of this building, which includes paintings by Frans Post and Albert Eckhout.