Dante

History of the collection:The collection was acquired as a gift of the heirs of Mrs JC Wirix-Van Mansvelt in 1937.
Size:The collection comprises approximately 2,000 titles.
Accessibility:The books are listed in the KB online public catalogue, and about 80% of them are listed in the KB card catalogues.
More information: Steven Claeyssens 070-3140312

The collection

In 1937, the heirs of Mrs JC Wirix-Van Mansvelt donated to the KB her 'remarkable collection of editions of Dante's works and writing about him', as announced in the library's annual report of the same year. Little more is known of Mrs Wirix than that Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italy's 'summo poeta' and the greatest exponent of the Middle Ages, must have played a prominent role in her life. This is demonstrated not only by the striking collection that she left behind but also by the small number of personal souvenirs of her association with Dante, which form a distinct part of the collection. She published her own works on the poet as well: a few articles and a book, Dante's veelzijdigheid ('Dante's versatility', The Hague, 1929), which would also be published in Italy years later.

Dante Alighieri, and especially his foremost work, The Divine Comedy, have been the objects of intense study throughout the centuries, though not so much in the Netherlands. Interest in Dante did not begin in this country until well into the 19th century. It came on the heels of Romanticism with the work of Potgieter and others and generally as part of the rise of Italian Studies at the university level. For Dante devotees in broader (including the non-academic) circles, the days commemorating the poet's birth and death were of great importance. In around 1865, the first serious translations were issued, and in around 1920 the Netherlands found itself littered with local chapters of the 'Dante Alighieri' society, affectionately known as 'la "Dante"'. Two names stand out in this regard: Romano Guarnieri, his country's self-proclaimed cultural ambassador, and the great Romanist Jean-Jacques Salverda de Grave, whose library incidentally is now housed in the KB. It is in this climate of enthusiasm that we must place the activities of Justine Wirix-van Mansvelt.

The arrival of her legacy did not come as a total novelty within the KB collection, of course. A great deal of material by and about Dante was already in the collection, although to some extent it was because this traditional subject of study had found a place in many different fields. Besides philology -- including Neo-Latin -- Dante was of interest to students of art history, palaeography, philosophy and theology. But the arrival of such a collection of Danteana, during the Depression when purchasing budgets were tight, came as a welcome injection and stimulated the continued building of the collection wherever possible.

The wealth and variety of the collection's contents are a reflection of all that has been achieved in the field of Dante since the beginning. The texts include faithful facsimiles of medieval manuscripts and editions from earlier centuries as well as modern, scholarly publications and works of mainly artistic interest. There are translations in many languages, mainly of the Divine Comedy, of course. In the secondary literature the accent is clearly on interpretive studies, not surprising in an oeuvre containing riches that are often hidden, and in which the discovery of new aspects has continued up to the present day. Mrs Wirix herself, in an ode at the end of her book, speaks of Dante's 'enigmatic language'.