Located in a fertile valley, by the brook with the same name, the village of Botão dates back to the pre-roman age and was a "moçárabe" (moorish and native) village in the 9th and 11th centuries. Agriculture is its main activity and then craftswork, namely the making of toothpicks. Its monumental heritage includes the church of Saint Mateus, with manuelin high altar and campanile, the temple shaped crucifix and the ruined manuelin palace.
Collection composed by astronomic and terrestrial observation instruments, acquired all over Europe, eight tens of maps and large size engravings. This collection was recently restored by the Caloustre Gulbenkian Fundation Museum Service.
The Pathological Anatomy Museum goes back to the XVIII century. After a troubled period at the Coimbra University, in 1822, Dr. Carlos José Pinheiro assembles what was left from the anatomic pieces and enlarges the collection of autopsy specimens. With the surgery advances the collection has been enlarging even more.
Since 1991, the Anthropological Museum integrates the Faculty of Sciences and Technology’s Natural History Museum. The periods represented in the collections are related to the XVIII, XIX, and XX centuries.
