on 11 December 1826, five weeks before her 30th birthday. The funeral ceremony was chaired by Francisco do Monte Alverne, official preacher of the Empire of Brazil. Her body, covered with the imperial mantle, was placed in three urns: the first made of Portuguese pine, the second made of lead (with its own Latin inscription, on which there was a skull with two crossed tibias, and on this, the imperial coat silver) and the third of cedar. She was buried on 14 December 1826 in the church of the Ajuda Convent (currently the Cinelândia). When the convent was demolished in 1911, her remains were transferred to the Santo Antônio Convent, also in Rio de Janeiro, where a mausoleum was built for her and some members of the imperial family. In 1954, her remains were definitively transferred to a green granite sarcophagus decorated with gold, in the Imperial Crypt and Chapel, under the Ipiranga Monument, in the city of São Paulo. Legacy Although she is portrayed as a melancholic woman and humiliated by the scandals and extramarital relations of Dom Pedro I (representing her as the fragile link in the love triangle), the most recent historiography has claimed to Maria Leopoldina a less passive image in national history. Maria Leopoldina had great prominence in Brazilian politics, either when the Portuguese court returned to Portugal, or behind the scenes of the friction between Brazil and Portugal until the moment of Independence in 1822. While Dom Pedro I still maintained the possibility of maintaining the United Kingdom with Portugal, Maria Leopoldina had already found that the most prudent path was the total emancipation of the metropolis. Maria Leopoldina's intellectual and political education, combined with her strong sense of duty and sacrifice on behalf of the State, were fundamental to Brazil, especially after King John VI, under Portuguese pressure, was forced to return to Lisbon. In view of the fact that she was an Archduchess of Austria and member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and who had been educated under an aristocratic and absolutist regime, Maria Leopoldina did not hesitate to defend ideals and more representative forms of government for Brazil, influenced by liberalism and constitutionalism. Brazilians had great respect and admiration for Maria Leopoldina from the first moments when she set foot in Brazil. Very popular (a view even stronger among the poorest and slaves), from the moment of her death she had