Brief Biography-Manuel de Araújo Porto-Alegre was born in Rio Pardo, the Rio Grande do Sul, in 1806. At sixteen, he was a watchmaker in Porto Alegre, and when he took up painting there, he changed his surname to Porto Alegre. At twenty-one, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro and studied under Jean Baptiste Debret, a French producer of lithographs of Brazilian life. Next, he went to Paris with Debret, painted at the École National Superiéure des Beaux-Art, and visited Italy, Belgium, and England. In Brazil, he was a painter for the City Council and received several commissions for architectural works. He founded periodicals in 1843, the Lanterna Mágica in 1844, and was the first magazine with caricatures. Porto Alegre entered politics in 1850 and became consul in Germany and Portugal. During that time, he published his poem, Columbus. Emperor Dom Pedro II granted him the Baron de Santo Ângelo title in 1874. He died in Lisbon in 1879.