Manuel José de Araújo Porto-Alegre, Baron of Santo Ângelo (29 November 1806 – 30 December 1879), was a Brazilian Romantic writer, painter, architect, diplomat and professor, considered to be one of the first Brazilian editorial cartoonists ever. He is the patron of the 32nd chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. Life Porto-Alegre was born Manuel José de Araújo in Rio Pardo, Rio Grande do Sul, to Francisco José de Araújo and Francisca Antônia Viana. He would change his name to Manuel de Araújo Pitangueira during the independence of Brazil, citing nativist reasons. Later on, he finally changed it to Manuel de Araújo Porto-Alegre. In 1826, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, in order to study painting with Jean-Baptiste Debret at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. He also studied at what is now the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras and took a medicine course and philosophy. In 1831, he left Brazil along with Debret to Europe, in order to improve his painting techniques. In 1835, he went to Italy, where he met Gonçalves de Magalhães, another Brazilian poet. Porto-Alegre and Magalhães would create in France, in the year of 1837, a short-lived magazine named Niterói, alongside Francisco de Sales Torres Homem. Also in 1837, he became history painting teacher at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, in a post that would last until 1848, when he became a drawing teacher at the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras, and started doing his first caricatures. In 1838, he married Ana Paulina Delamare, having two children with her: Carlota Porto-Alegre (the future wife of painter Pedro Américo) and future diplomat Paulo Porto-Alegre. In 1840 he was named the official painter and decorator of emperor Pedro II's palace. He decorated the imperial palace in Petrópolis, the wedding of Pedro II with Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies and the emperor's coronation. He was decorated with the Order of Christ and the Order of the Rose. Reuniting with Gonçalves de Magalhães and Torres Homem, he founded a periodic named Minerva Brasiliense, that lasted from 1843 to 1845. He would publish in this periodic his poem Brasiliana. In 1844, alongside Torres Homem, he founded the humoristic magazine Lanterna Mágica, where he published his caricatures. In 1849, Porto-Alegre founded the magazine Guanabara, alongside Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and Gonçalves Dias. The magazine, considered the official journal of the Romantic movement in Brazil, lasted until 1856. In