MARIANA

city, east central Minas Gerais state, Brazil, on the Rio do Carmo in the Rio Doce Basin, at 2,287 ft (697 m) above sea level. Formerly known as Vila de Albuquerque and Vila de Carmo, the settlement was made a seat of a municipality in 1711 and attained city status in 1745. The state's oldest city, Mariana was once renowned as a mining centre and since 1905 has been the seat of a bishopric. The old prison (gadeia), the Carmo and So Francisco de Assis churches, the Palace of Governors, and other colonial buildings remain. Agriculture and livestock raising are now the principal economic activities, yielding beef, milk, poultry, coffee, rice, corn (maize), feijo (beans), sugarcane, garlic, and sorghum. The nearby Minas da Passagem, one of the largest gold mines in Minas Gerais, is still economically significant. Mariana is accessible by railroad and highway from Rio de Janeiro and from Belo Horizonte, the state capital (50 mi northwest). Pop. (1980 prelim.) 11,785. Angelo's betrothed in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Abandoned by Angelo when her dowry was lost at sea, Mariana nonetheless persists in her devotion and willingly substitutes for Isabella in an assignation with him. Mariana's conviction that the best men are molded out of faults seems the most reasonable philosophy of all those expressed in the play.