Tourist attraction
Praça da Sé
Praça da Sé - Se, São Paulo - SP, 01001-000
Colonial-era square holding a cathedral crypt where a pioneering balloon inventor's remains were reburied.
This guide to Praça da Sé in São Paulo opens with a question: why the man who invented the hot air balloon ended up buried under this cathedral square. It goes back to August 1709, when Brazilian-born priest Bartolomeu de Gusmão released a small paper balloon in a Lisbon palace hall before the king and court, decades before two French brothers took credit for the same trick in Paris. The king rewarded Gusmão with a church title, the sole right to build flying machines, and a larger winged craft he began sketching next, called the Passarola.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.