Francisco Costa

Vasco is a medical student in Lisbon, supported by his rich aunts, whom he had falsely told he had already graduated. In fact, he devotes himself to a bohemian life, preferring the popular fairs and pretty women, especially Alice, a seamstress from the Castelinhos quarter, which rather upsets her ambitious father, tailor Caetano, who is familiar with Vasco's debts. After failing yet another final exam, he is surprised by his aunts' announcement that they will visit him in Lisbon to see his practice.

Bocage was a former naval officer, a cultured gentleman, a passionate man, and a poet. He lived in the second half of the 18th century and had a series of relationships, writing love poems to his Three Graces: his colleague Márcia, a wild girl, and her two sisters.