The Museu Mineiro is the official state history museum of Minas Gerais, housed in a stately late nineteenth-century mansion just off Praça da Liberdade. The collection covers four hundred years of Minas Gerais history: colonial silver, baroque religious sculpture from the great mining-town churches, paintings by the Mineiran master Mestre Athaíde, and the document archives of state political life.
The mansion itself was designed for the state legislature in the 1880s and is worth seeing for its painted ceilings, parquet floors, and grand staircase. The visit fits naturally with a walk around Praça da Liberdade.