This book is the first study on the process of formation of the image of the Moorish or Moorish in Portuguese ephemeral art, offering an overall and long-term vision that covers the entire Modern Age. It is, above all, a history of the representations of the Muslim in the metropolis: Lisbon, given that our object of study is mostly Lisbon products created by and for the court. Thus, numerous scattered materials are gathered here, together with other documentation hitherto unpublished or little studied, which focus on the creation of a collective (anti) Islamic imaginary, which sought to underline the traditional role of the Portuguese monarchy in war permanently against "enemies of the faith" since the Middle Ages. The authors have carried out a systematic study of public festivals, as they were understood in modern times, addressing not only the ephemeral architecture and the decorations displayed to celebrate different events of the royal house, but also the games of canes, the fireworks fireworks, theatrical performances or any other political spectacle, in order to understand what role such defense of Christianity played in regiopolitical propaganda.

All of this has made it possible to observe a series of changes that were added or intertwined in the traditional imagery that, in the East, was spreading among Lisbon court circles. If during the Iberian Union, the Habsburg kings gave great prominence to the "internal enemy" when it came to shaping their supremacy as a universal monarchy, while trying to reorient the Portuguese imperial project, after the restoration of the Braganza, on the other hand, the Portuguese monarchs saw in the fight against Islam a good opportunity to vindicate themselves, both personally and institutionally. It is not, therefore, a book that focuses solely on the creation of a political or religious iconography, but also delves into the complex process of construction of identities in a key territory in the eastern Iberian and Atlantic expansion such as the crown Portuguese.