Mauritia

Arriving in Recife in 1637, Maurice of Nassau took office as president of the High and Secret Council and personally led the armies of the Flemish Company, who drove the Portuguese away again and extended the Dutch rule to Maranhão to the north and the São Francisco River to the south. Far more than a capable governer and general, his interests also – and perhaps most of all – included the arts and sciences. Indeed, he had brought along a large team of draftsmen, painters, map-makers, physicians, zoologists and botanist tasked with studying and document what he would later refer nostalgically to as “ce beau pays de Brésil, lequel n’a pas son pareil sous le ciel”.