The Foundation

Casa de Mateus, completed in 1744, is a symbol of a much older history, a magical place. It's a time machine that allows us to travel through the last five hundred years of the history of Portugal, Europe and the world. It's a point in the universe where people, ideas, documents and works of art come together from all over the world to form a collection that we invite you to share.

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Once past the short path that leads down from the entrance gate, the visitor encounters a unique landscape: the façades of the House and Chapel, duplicated by the water mirror and framed by a lush natural park, offer a perfect combination of history and nature, a unique relationship between the geometry of the space, the memories and the protagonists that come down to us from the course of time.

A marvel of architecture and landscape, the ensemble formed by the Casa de Mateus, its gardens and agricultural and forestry areas, constantly reinvents itself, showing us how, over the centuries, new ways of reinterpreting the matrix printed by Nasoni have emerged, of affirming timelessness as one of the characteristics of the Baroque.

In addition to the dramatic splendour of the main façade and the richness of its decoration, the whole complex is marked by the rationality of its plan and the rigour of its metrics and modulation.

The interior, marked by a succession of rooms, from the Great Hall to the domestic wings, the Library, the Religious Museum and the more social wing to the south, displays a particularly expressive collection.

The 17th to 20th century furniture and precious objects tell us about the life of the house, which was lived in by twelve successive generations of the same family until the Casa de Mateus Foundation was set up in 1970.

The painting collection consists of period portraits, still lifes and traditional Italian putti. The pipe organ that can be heard in the Chapel and the many period instruments remind us of the constant presence of music. The impressive collection of relics transports us to the religious context of the Baroque period. The volumes that make up the library condense an important part of the knowledge of Western culture and its encounter with other worlds and tell us about the family's editorial desire and their links to the university, ecclesiastical and diplomatic circles

The gardens, living bodies incessantly reconstructed over the centuries, establish a rare unity with the House, extending along the same central axis and constructing a remarkable game of scales, concealments and revelations.

If it's the lake at the entrance that surprises us in its relationship with the architecture, the rose garden bordering the south wing gives it a special colourful and aromatic exuberance that contrasts with the rational design of the upper and lower parterres.

To the east, we find traces of the original gardens, extending the majestic cedar tunnel into the productive landscape. The vegetable gardens, which link the gardens to the forest area, complete a complex ecosystem that respects the rhythms and conditions of environmental balance.

Linked to the creation of the Douro Demarcated Region in 1756, Casa de Mateus finds vineyards and wine as one of its essential matrices.

The winery, whose original construction dates back to the 16th century, is still in full swing today and receives grapes from old vines - true living fossils that accumulate the memory of ancestral practices - and from others planted recently according to principles of sustainability and balance, to make distinctive wines that are unique in their character.