Who's behind the news?
Who's behind the news?
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Newsjunkie.net is a resource guide for journalists. We show who's behind the news, and provide tools to help navigate the modern business of information.
Use of Data
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The Arquivo Central do Itamaraty (Central Archive of Itamaraty) is the principal repository for Brazilian diplomatic documentation produced from 1959 onward, maintained by the General Coordination of Diplomatic Documentation (Coordenação-Geral de Documentação Diplomática, CDO) of Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministério das Relações Exteriores), colloquially known as Itamaraty. It is located at the Itamaraty Palace in Brasília, the striking Modernist complex designed by Oscar Niemeyer that has served as the ministry's headquarters since 1970.
Brazilian diplomatic archives have deep roots. When the Portuguese royal court transferred to Brazil in 1808, archival documentation from the Crown Secretariat for Foreign Affairs came with it. After Brazil's independence in 1822, the ministry formalised institutional record-keeping practices that have continued to the present. Documentation produced before 1959 is generally held at the Arquivo Histórico do Itamaraty in Rio de Janeiro, which occupies the former Itamaraty Palace and holds approximately 2,000 linear metres of handwritten and printed records dating from 1575 to 1959.
The Brasília archive holds all diplomatic documentation produced from 1959 onwards, including correspondence, treaties, negotiations, multilateral and bilateral agreements, and internal ministry records. The Rio de Janeiro archive, accessible through the same CDO structure, preserves historical materials from the colonial period, the Empire, and the early Republic—making the combined Itamaraty archives one of Brazil's most significant repositories of state documentation.
The CDO in Brasília also works in conjunction with the Itamaraty Historical and Diplomatic Museum and the Map Library (Mapoteca) in Rio de Janeiro. The Mapoteca houses one of the most important cartographic collections in Latin America, comprising more than 30,000 items covering the history of Western cartography since the sixteenth century.
Research access to the Brasília documentation is available through an online request form on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. The archive is open to the public Monday through Friday, from 9 am to 1 pm and 2 pm to 6 pm. Requests regarding documentation in Rio de Janeiro are handled directly by the Itamaraty Historical Archive there. The service is available to academics, journalists, students, and the general public.