The stately Tiradentes Palace houses the seat of the legislative assembly. Exhibits on the 1st and 2nd floors relate the events that have taken place here since 1926. One of its darkest hours was when the National Assembly was shut down in 1937 under the Vargas dictatorship; it later served as the Department of Press and Propaganda.
Free guided tours, available in English, take you through some of the old legislative chambers as well as into the gallery overlooking the present-day assembly hall.
The statue in front, incidentally, is not a likeness of Russian mystic Rasputin, but rather that of martyr Tiradentes, who led the drive toward Brazilian independence in the 18th century. He was imprisoned in one of the former holding cells beneath the building.
