Museums and Palaces

This museum is installed in a small 18th-century summer palace that perfectly combines the 19th-century exterior with the interior organised into large mseum rooms. A fine park surrounds the building, which the Marquises of Angeja, its 19th-century owners, made into one of the most beautiful botanical gardens in Lisbon.

Visitors to this space find an ambience charged with emotions. Inside the museum they experience the ever-present magic of the theatre as they look at the models of set mock-ups, costumes, wardrobes, stage props, caricatures and photographs of the stage protagonists, paper and toy 19th and 20th-century mini-theatres and thousands of photographs. Outside you can enjoy the charms of nature as you take a walk in the park and visit the Sculpture Garden.

One of the main focal points is the homage paid to the great Portuguese actors and actresses who devoted their lives to the theatre and to performing, such as Eduardo Brasão and the Companhia Rosas e Brasão (1880-1898), Amélia Rey Colaço and the Companhia Rey Colaço Robles Monteiro, the actress Virgínia, Amália Rodrigues, Vasco and Henrique Santana.

A library of around 30,000 volumes is the largest and most complete one in Portugal dedicated excusively to the performing arts.