Praça Dom Feliciano, Porto Alegre

Praça Dom Feliciano is one of the oldest squares in the city of Porto Alegre, capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. It is located in front of the historic building of the Santa Casa de Misericórdia in the city center.

Its first name was Praça da Alegria, officially marked since 1809 in a letter from the City Council to the captaincy governor Dom Diogo de Souza, where the area was destined to be used as a public place and as a meeting point for the carts that came to supply the city with food. However, the place was already known as a gravel and clay extraction point, and it is said that Dom Diogo's predecessor, Paulo da Gama, had already wanted to move the carts from there to Praça do Paraíso.

As of 1810 the removal of clay from the site was prohibited, and in 1830 Dona Josefa de Azevedo, the Brigadeira, donated the entire area to be used as a square, which suggests that even being designated for this purpose for more than two decades the site was still private property. In any case its definitive delimitation would not occur until 1843, when the connection between Rua da Praia and Caminho dos Moinhos de Vento, now Avenida Independência, was established.

In 1857 its name was changed to Misericórdia Square, but its conditions didn't improve with the measure, and in the following year the Santa Casa administrator still complained to the city councilors about the popular custom of dumping fecal matter there. In 1873 its name was changed again to the current one, Praça Dom Feliciano, in honor of Dom Feliciano José Rodrigues Prates, the first bishop of Rio Grande do Sul.

Between 1884 and 1886 the City provided its first urbanization and landscaping, remodeled in 1920, with new leveling to minimize the strong slope of the terrain. Later the square was adorned with the busts of Eduardo Guimaraens and Mário Totta. The square was also popularly known under the names Praça da Caridade, Alto da Caridade and Alto da Misericórdia.