Tourists that visit Ouro Preto, come here! Stop a little bit and listen a history. A beautiful history that doesn't end more...

He was once a poor boy, without studies, without special school of art, but he became famous in the whole world.

He called himself Aleijadinho. He was born in Bom Sucesso, close to Vila Rica. More or less in 1730 or 1738.

Your parents: Manuel Francisco Lisboa, a Portuguese architect, and Isabel, an African slave. He was a natural son.

He suffered a disease that nobody knew what was: Nervous leprosy, syphilis or rheumatism deformante. Poor fellow! He lost the fingers of the hands and feet, and all the teeth. He died blind to the 86 years old, in 1814, according to the death certificate, that is at the Museum of the... of the... I don´t remember the name. But the art lived inside of him. With those hands and crippled feet, he made the marvels that today is admired by eberybody in the world.

Your assistants tied the instruments of works in the stubs of hands and feet of him. Of there, as a dazzle of these that we read in the stories of fairies, they left the forms, lights, colors, movements and pain expressions. Yes, because the Baroque art is the suffered man's expression, tortured, divided, my teacher has said that.

God placed in those wounded and crippled hands the whole magic that the art has. A thousand forms, a thousand colors, a thousand lights. And he created, and created, giving to the stone soap or wood, all the possible beauty!

He liked to work at dawn, under an awning. He had two slaves. He asked them that took him home in the darkness, because he was very ugly and he didn't want nobody to see him of that way.

He was like this: Mulatto, fat, low, thick lips, short neck, big ears, a strong voice, cheerful, idler.

His works are the largest expression of the Baroque art, in Minas Gerais.

They are in Ouro Preto, mainly in the Churches of San Francisco of Assis, Our Lady of Carmo, Our Matriz Senhora of the Consolation, Our Matriz Senhora of the Favors, Pardons and also in the museum that has your name.

In Congonhas do Campo, is the celebrated work " The Prophets ". Aand also has works in Sabará, Tiradentes, São João Del Rey.

My Aleijadinho, if I was of your time, I would lend for you my hands and my feet. You were a hidden genius, but today, Minas Gerais exalt you.

He was an example of willpower, of fight and love to the art!

I want to put you in my lap and to sing a lullaby for falling asleep your pain. Beautiful pain, capable to madden us.