Augusto de Lima, Brazil

Antonio Augusto de Lima was a Brazilian journalist, poet, musician, magistrate, jurist, professor and politician. He was born in Congonhas de Sabará (now Nova Lima), on April 5, 1859.

De Lima was governor of the state of Minas Gerais, and was responsible for transfering the capital of the state from Ouro Preto to Belo Horizonte (then "Curral Del Rey"). He was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1903. In 1906, Augusto de Lima was elected deputado federal (house representative) and moved to Rio de Janeiro, the federal district.

He married Vera Monteiro de Barros de Suckow, granddaughter of Hans Willelm von Suckow, Major of the Prussian Army (who fought Napoleon in Waterloo) and patron of Brazil’s horse racing — the first breeder of race horses in Brazil.

As a politician, Augusto de Lima defended female suffrage and was also an ecologist. He was strongly devoted to Saint Francis of Assisi, and was responsible for the first forest protection law in Brazil, implemented after a fifteen year battle in congress.

Works

• Contemporâneas, poetry (1887)
• Símbolos poetry (1892)
• Poesias (1909)
• Noites de sábado, cronicles (1923)
• São Francisco de Assis, poetry (1930)
• Coletânea de poesias (1880-1934)
• Poetry (1959)
• Tiradentes, poetry
• Antes da Sombra, poetry (not released).