The extensive critical literature now available to scholars covering most aspects of Brazilian colonial architecture and art dates back to 1937, when the first numbers appeared of the Revista and Publicaçãoes of the Serviço do Património Histórico e Artístico Nacional, Ministério da Educação e Cultura (SPHAN). These two series have provided the solid basis of documentation and critical analysis which has opened up the subject for serious study. In the same year, 1937, there was published the first important general survey of Brazilian colonial architecture: Juan Giuria, ‘La riqueza arquitectónica de algunas ciudades del Brasil’, Revista de la Sociedad Amigos de la Arqueología, 8 (Montevideo, 1937).

General studies of the colonial period that are worthy of note include: Robert C. Smith, ‘The arts in Brazil’, in H. V. Livermore (ed.), Portugal and Brazil (Oxford, 1953); Germain Bazin, L’architecture religieuse baroque au Brésil, 2 vols. (Paris, 1956–8); A. C. da Silva Telles, Atlas dos monumentos históricos e artísticos do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1975); Benedito de L. Toledo, ‘A arte no Brasil do século XVI ao início do século XIX’, in História geral da arte no Brasil, I (São Paulo, 1983); and John Bury, Arquitectura e arte no Brasil colonial (São Paulo, 1990). The latter reprints in Portuguese translation (edited by Myriam Andrade Ribeiro de Oliveira, with illustrations, including over eighty architectural drawings and engravings) nine essays on the art and architecture of Brazil, Portugal, Portuguese India and China during the period 1500–1800. On eighteenth-century religious sculpture and painting throughout Brazil, see Myriam A. Ribeiro, ‘A arquitetura e as artes plásticas no século XVIII brasileiro’, in Gávea: Revista de Historia da Arte 2 (1985).