Castelo de São João Baptista do Monte Brasil

The Fortaleza de São João Baptista, also known as Fortaleza do Monte Brasil and Fortaleza de São Filipe (Portuguese meaning Saint Philip) is a historic fortress located in the municipality of Angra do Heroísmo in the south of the island of Terceira in the Azores Islands.

The dominant location between the promontory of Monte Brasil, a volcanic crater which is situated on the west side of the bay, and features Spanish-Portuguese fortifications. It had a port with its defenses and it was considered for diverse uses, the most important Spanish built fortress in the Atlantic Ocean along with the Aguada Fortress in Goa, India, one of the most built Portuguese fortifications in history.

The island's defense was during the period of major activity between 1560 and 1582. It had an extensive wall. Im that tile, the architect and a military engineer Tomás Benedito elaborated a plan of global defense of terceira Islands, comprehended the Forte de São Sebastião (or Castelinho), porto das pipas and Forte de São Sebastião in Ribeira Seca, it included the plan continued by Ciprião de Figueiredo e Vasconcelos and it had over fifty defensive works.

During the Philippine Dynasty, the baia de Angra in the centre of the Azores Archipelago, it was structured with two verticals of stratecig triangle, in the North Atlantic, it protected the beaches of the then Spanish Carreira das Índias. Other places which had complex fortifications were Havana in the island of Cuba, Cartagena in Colombia. In the Azores, it had a reunion of embarcations in which cruised in the North and the South Atlantic.

The current conjunction of the fortress saw a remodeling in 1590 with a plan attributed by the engineer from Spain, the Sienese Tibúrcio Spanochi, where he visited the local with integration of the armada, the Marquess of Santa Cruz (1583-1584), later by the engineer Girolamo Francès and the Milanese Giovanni Battista Cairati, architect of Portugal of the Orient with king Philip I of Portugal (1580-1598), it was later renamed the Fortaleza de São Filipe.

During the Portuguese Restoration in 1640, it was later renamed to São João Baptista.

Situated at 111.5 metres above sea level, the fortress. In the 20th century, in its dependencies formed a politicla prison with the Estado Novo. It later installed a communications centre (Centro de Comunicações da Armada). It later built an antenna, the local population passed and created a station called Pico Rádio. The current structure was constituted for a main nucleus, it included a wall which extends about four kilometres. It is a tourist attraction and is open between 9 A.M. and 6 P.M.

The Centro Histórico de Angra do Heroísmo declared this landmark as part of the UNESCO's World Heritage Site.