Palestra Itália, 2010, brick by brick.

Parque Antarctica was a football ground before Palmeiras existed. It belonged to Companhia Antarctica Paulista, the brewery, and hosted a match of the first São Paulo state championship in 1902.

Palestra Italia, founded in 1914 by Italian immigrants, started playing there in 1917. On 27 April 1920 it bought the site of about 120,000 m² for 500 contos de réis, roughly 100 kg of gold, or close to R$70 million today. For such a young club the price looked unpayable, and the deal became known as "the madness of the century". It nearly was: to pay the last installment in 1922, the club had to sell part of the land to the Matarazzo family, where Bourbon Shopping stands today.

In 1933 the club opened a concrete stadium for about 30,000 people with a 6–0 win over Bangu. In 1942, during the Second World War, Palestra became Palmeiras, but the stadium kept its name. In the renovation reopened in 1964, the pitch was raised about 3 metres to escape flooding, with a moat around it and the dressing rooms underneath. Seen from the stands, the pitch seemed to float, and the stadium earned the nickname Jardim Suspenso, the Suspended Garden.

The farewell was a friendly against Boca Juniors on 9 July 2010. Palestra was then demolished to make way for the arena now called Nubank Parque.

The gold figure uses the 1926 parity (1 mil-réis = 0.2 g of gold) and is only an order of magnitude. Sources: Palmeiras: Parque Antarctica · Palmeiras: 100 years since the purchase · Palmeiras: the farewell · Anais do Museu Paulista · Streapco, USP thesis (2011).

I wanted to rebuild Palestra as it was in its final year: the 1998 horseshoe, the covered side, the Visa section, the floodlight towers and the raised crest behind the north goal.

Measurements come from a 2004 orthophoto and city elevation points. Anything that could not be measured was estimated and is labeled that way in the viewer.