Itacolomi

The paired rocks of Itacolomi rose above the gold country between Ouro Preto and Mariana. Around the end of the seventeenth century, prospectors used the peak as a landmark when finding their way through the interior. It became associated with the routes into the mining settlements that developed as Vila Rica and its neighbours. Its name retained a Tupi description of the conspicuous rock formation.

At the foot of this landscape, the Casa Bandeirista on the São José do Manso estate was built between 1706 and 1708. Attributed to Domingos da Silva Bueno, an official responsible for the mines, it served the collection of the royal fifth and the surveillance and defence of approaches to Vila Rica. Itacolomi thus marked both the path toward mineral wealth and an attempt by colonial government to bring that movement under fiscal control.