D. Francisco de Sousa Botelho de Albuquerque, Count of Mangualde, Vila Real and Melo, born in 1909, dedicated almost his entire life to setting up the Casa de Mateus Foundation, with the donation for public service purposes of the architectural complex comprising the House, Chapel and Cellar Houses, a perimeter made up of historic gardens, orchards, vineyards and woodland and an extensive collection comprising archives, a library and museum collections.

By establishing the Casa de Mateus Foundation on 3 December 1970, D. Francisco gave this family project a global meaning. Allowing for the preservation of the integrity of the heritage, as the figure of the Morgadio had done in its time, the Foundation set broader statutory objectives and added to heritage preservation a set of cultural, artistic, educational and scientific missions that consolidated it as a territorial agent capable of making connections between the past, present and future, or between a perspective rooted in the Region and a global outlook on contemporary challenges. More than managing a heritage site, the Casa de Mateus Foundation formulates a way of thinking and being in the world, in a particular and original spirit of continuity that dates back to the 16th century and is realised every moment in its own time and for the next.