The books are not only the support of ideas, cultures and knowledge, they also exist in their materiality, in their concreteness, therefore we say that a work has two dimensions: one on its ideas, its subject, its content, called corpus misticum and another on the material support, called corpus mechanicum. The Codicology is exactly the science that focuses on the study of the corpus mechanicum of the manuscripts books, also known as codices. Focusing on this science, the goal is to present the substance of a manuscript book of the late 18th century, intitled Memória Histórica da Capitania de São Paulo e Todos os seus Memoráveis Sucessos desde o anno de 1531 thé o prezente de 1796, of Manoel Cardoso de Abreu, as a way to understand the history of the codex in its full material extent. This document, dated 1796, is a codex belonging to the Archives of the State of São Paulo, E11571 quota, which tells the story of the Captaincy of São Paulo, formerly Captaincy of São Vicente, with the central figure Martim Afonso de Sousa, responsible for the foundation of the village of São Vicente.