It was in this jail that one of the leading figures of the Minas Gerais Conspiracy, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, known as Tiradentes, was imprisoned.

[2] It later became the seat of the General Assembly of the Empire of Brazil, the lower house of the country's legislative branch (the Senate being the upper one).

[3] It was in that building, at that time serving as the General Assembly, that the Golden Law that abolished slavery in Brazil was voted and approved in 1888.

The old imperial building was demolished in 1922, giving way to the Tiradentes Palace, a monumental building designed in the eclectic style by Archimedes Memoria and Francisque Couchet; its inauguration took place on 6 May 1926, the same date in which the first Legislative Chamber of the Empire of Brazil was established a hundred years earlier.

[1][2][3] In 1960, with the move of the federal capital to Brasília during the government of Juscelino Kubitschek, the city of Rio de Janeiro ceased to be the Federal District, becoming the state of Guanabara and the Tiradentes Palace began to house the Legislative Assembly of the State of Guanabara.

In this context the palace's style and motives, including internal decoration elements such as the paintings, reflect the republican government's goal of consolidating the image and aesthetics of a Brazilian national past, with several references to historical events in Brazil.

[4][5] The dome is divided into eight panels, four large and four minor ones; the larger panels depict the evangelization of the indigenous peoples; governor-general Tomé de Sousa; the Empire of Brazil era represented by figures such as José Bonifácio, Diogo Antônio Feijó and the Emperor Pedro II; and finally the Republic, represented by presidents Deodoro da Fonseca, Floriano Peixoto and Prudente de Morais.