The port of Parati, which is situated on the coast close to the border between the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, was declared a historical monument in 1945. A further decree of 1947 defined the area in which new building and the remodelling of existing buildings are subject to strict supervision to prevent destruction of its architectural character as one of the oldest towns in Brazil.
Parati was first settled in the beginning of the seventeenth century. It became a town in 1660 and a city in 1884. The present collection of documents, gathered from various archival and printed sources, contain its history over the centuries. The oldest is an anonymous document, presumed to date from the last years of the 17th century and found in the Biblioteca da Ajuda in Lisbon, which mentions Parati in describing a route to the newly discovered gold mines in Minas Gerais from Rio de Janeiro. The most considerable is an excerpt from the memoirs of the Province of Rio de Janeiro, dedicated to Dom João VI by the priest in charge of the Royal Chapel in 1820.
The volume concludes with a series of photographs of some of the architectural features of the old town. This is the type of publication that is immensely valuable, since it rescues either from destruction by natural enemies or oblivion in forgotten archives documents which are the raw material for the histories of Brazil yet to be written.