I hope this study of the musical iconography of power in seventeenth-century Spain has added to the knowledge of the festival iconography and the ideology of monarchical power in the different territories of the Spanish crown. Here I wish to express some final thoughts:

First, I want to state that ephemeral displays on the ideal of royalty in urban festivals do not always portray theocentric absolutism, as it is often declared in many studies on the topic produced in Spain, even if that was the official discourse of the Peninsular Habsburgs. Often the image conveyed was quite the opposite: the perfect ruler as a guarantor of civil liberties and traditional privileges, who collaborates with local institutions (high courts, town councils and the like) in the smooth running of the realm. This is particularly true in the American territories, and in particular in Mexico, where the triumphal arches erected to welcome the new viceroy were not designed by the entourage of the preceding ruler to welcome his successor, but by scholars employed by the ‘cabildo’ or town council to convey their expectations, which included as much political autonomy as was reasonably possible. Ironically, in these places the viceroy could exert absolute rule in events such as royal funerals, whose organization his entourage supervised, but not in viceregal entries.