expansion and improve the salubrity of the city. Also in Rio was built perhaps the largest infrastructure work in colonial Brazil: the Carioca Aqueduct, definitively inaugurated in 1750. The aqueduct brought water from the river of the same name to the city center, feeding several fountains, some of which still exist. One of them was located in Paço Square (now 15 November Square), urbanized in the early 1740s by José Fernandes Pinto Alpoim in the image of Lisbon's Ribeira Square. The square's pier would later gain a monumental fountain, designed by Mestre Valentim and completed in 1789. Rio de Janeiro, capital of the colony since 1767, was the main focus of urban interventions between the 18th and 19th centuries. The most important was the creation of the Passeio Público between 1789 and 1793. The design of the park, executed according to a project by Mestre Valentim, included geometric tree-lined boulevards, fountains and statues. To build the park required a major urban intervention, with the destruction of a hill and the embankment of a pond. Later, with the arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family in 1808, Rio also gained the Botanical Garden, the first in Colonial Brazil. Architects Those responsible for the architectural designs (riscos) of the colony remained largely anonymous, even in the case of some large convents and churches. Among the known authors, there are religious and many military engineers, the latter with solid theoretical knowledge of architecture. Others had more practical knowledge, such as master builders, master stonemasons and carpenters. Religious orders such as the Jesuits, Benedictines, Franciscans and Carmelites, among the first to settle in Brazil, had notable architects and builders in their ranks, and with them began a great tradition of increasingly rich and imposing religious buildings. For example, the Jesuit architect Francisco Dias, who had worked on the construction of the Jesuit church in Lisbon, arrived in Brazil in 1577. He worked on the Graça Church in Olinda (his only design still standing), and built the Jesuit colleges in Rio de Janeiro, Santos, and others. Another important religious architect was Friar Macário de São João, a Benedictine to whom are attributed the 17th century designs of the churches of the São Bento Monastery and the Misericórdia of Salvador, among others. The military engineers were mostly Portuguese, with some of other nationalities, especially Italians in the service of Portugal. These engineers not only built forts, but