Museu do Ipiranga (Museu Paulista da USP)

Museu Paulista da USP, generally known as Museu do Ipiranga, occupies a monumental neoclassical palace built between 1885 and 1890 on the hill in the Ipiranga district where, according to tradition, Dom Pedro I declared Brazil's independence from Portugal on September 7, 1822, an event known as the Grito do Ipiranga. The building was designed by Tommaso Gaudenzio Bezzi in a French neoclassical style with formal gardens modeled on Versailles, and it opened as a museum in 1895 under the direction of naturalist Hermann von Ihering, initially focused on natural history before shifting toward Brazilian history and material culture over the 20th century. Its best-known holding is Pedro Américo's monumental 1888 painting "Independência ou Morte," depicting the independence declaration, displayed as the centerpiece of the historical galleries. The museum, administered by the University of São Paulo, closed for renovation in 2013 and reopened in September 2022 in time for Brazil's independence bicentennial, with new curatorial displays covering colonial society, the independence period, the imperial era, and the formation of the modern Brazilian state, alongside restored period rooms and the surrounding formal gardens.