The Portas de Moura Fountain is included in the urban renovation designed by Cardinal D. Henrique, while Archbishop of Évora, whose most striking feature in the physiognomy of the city was the construction of the Fountain in Giraldo Square and consequent demolition of the ancient roman triumphal arch, in which the Água da Prata Aqueduct originally ended.
Built in one of the most emblematic squares of the 15th century city, surrounded by noble houses of the most important families, the Fountain in Portas de Moura was solemnly inaugurated on December 4, 1556 (as reads in the inscription on the sphere) and is thought to have been built by Diogo de Torralva, who at the time was also the master architect responsible for the works of the Aqueduct (ESPANCA, 1993, p.67).
The work consists of two rectangular tanks, the main one being in a higher level, accessible by a three-step platform. In it a globular marble fountain, set in a circular shank, with “four scowls represented by high-relief seraphim” (ESPANCA, 1966) that supply the tanks.
Although without the magnificence and urban impact of the fountain at Giraldo Square, the Portas de Moura Fountain initiated the Mannerist typology of fountains in the city of Évora, in which the Giraldo Square Fountain is clearly included, giving at the same time evidence of power and progress during the Cardinal's government along with the largest public work, then under construction, the Água da Prata Aqueduct.