the Imperial Academy, to which the emperor was assiduously present, and in the following year he published another novel, Amor de Esposo. Orders in Rio de Janeiro were scarce, however, and his health was no longer good; after losing a son, he saw his two others fall ill. However, Américo managed to sign a contract with the government of São Paulo for the creation in three years of another important work, Independência ou Morte!, painted in Florence in 1888, which immediately became famous and also controversial. Once again, his aesthetics were the subject of debate and he was accused of plagiarism. In 1889 he participated in the Exposition Universelle, where he exhibited only a photograph and preparatory sketches for Independência ou Morte!, but which earned him praise from Ernest Meissonier and admission to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. At the invitation of the French government, he participated in a commission of the Regulatory Congress of Literary and Artistic Property, and represented Brazil in the Congress for the Protection of Historic Monuments, whose presidency he assumed in several sessions, in the absence of the titular president, the architect Charles Garnier. Last years After the Republic was proclaimed in Brazil on 15 November 1889, a change that led to the ostracism of the another great academic painter of his generation, Victor Meirelles, Pedro Américo, back in Brazil, managed to maintain part of his prestige with the government, although he was also fired from the Imperial Academy as his colleague. The Academy was restructured as the National School of Fine Arts. Américo produced more important works for the new regime: Tiradentes esquartejado (part of a projected series on the Minas Gerais Conspiracy that he did not perform), Libertação dos escravos and Honra e Pátria e Paz e Concórdia. In 1890 he was elected deputy for Pernambuco at the Constituent Congress and during his term he defended the creation of museums, galleries and universities throughout the country, but his already fragile health prevented him from attending the sessions assiduously. Over the course of his career Américo amassed considerable wealth by investing in government bonds, but with the financial crisis triggered by the Encilhamento policy, his investments suddenly went down in value and he was ruined. In 1894, impoverished, his health deteriorating and his eyesight impaired, he moved permanently to Florence. Despite his problems, he still painted and wrote, publishing the novels O Foragido in 1899,