It was during almost 50 years, the private residence of Fernando Bissaya Barreto ( 1886 to 1974 ), an eminent Professor of Medicine, University of Coimbra, surgeon, philanthropist and humanist, highest in the history of assistance and social medicine in Portugal. The building and its architectural peculiarities, the garden and its decorative and ornamental aesthetics, furniture and art collections, reveal the importance of the values of beauty, of the Order of Perfection and Aesthetics represented in the life of Bissaya Barreto.