Minerva e a Virgem Maria: a expulsão dos holandeses na tela de Juan Bautista Maíno e na cópia doada aos baianos

This article studies one particular copy of Juan Bautista Maíno’s seventeenthcentury painting La recuperación de Bahia de Todos los Santos, addressing especially the scene of the tapestry. Donated by Spain to the government of Bahia in the year 1950, the work depicts the expulsion of the Dutch from the city of Salvador in the year 1625 and is now kept in the museum of the said city’s municipal council. The ultimate aim here is to reflect on the reasons why the Dominican friar, author of the original work, chose Minerva over the Virgin Mary as a representation of the Luso-Spanish victory against the Protestant Dutch in the Bahian capital. Maíno’s preference for a heathen goddess might come across as an inconsistency, given the strong religious tone of the whole scene and the overall intent to extol the defeat of the Reformed faith to Roman orthodoxy.