articles, on the use of cavalry, in 1928 came out in the Italian language. It is very likely that the text for this article was translated by Justine. As to the reputation of Italy's military leader at that time: it was just in the second part of the thirties that Il Duce became widely unpopular with the Dutch people. As an expression of the much changed opinion of him, the newspaper De Telegraaf of 24 September 1937 shows a satirical cartoon on the peace policy of the Italian and German dictators by the celebrated political cartoonist Louis Raemaekers (1869–1956), who was married to Johanna Petronella van Mansvelt, one of Justine's cousins. Just as his wife Anthonie Wirix had a fascination with Dante's oeuvre. Inspired by the illustrations in Jacob van Maerlant's 'Rhyme Bible' (1271), Anthonie made as many as 670 coloured miniatures for the 34 cantos of 'The Inferno' section of Dante's epic poem The divine Comedy (La divina Commedia). These pen drawings, which he probably meant to publish, are part of the archives of the family of the mentioned great-grandfather Hoek. The 28 pen drawings illustrating Dante's Vita Nuova in the Wirix-van Mansvelt collection at the National Library of the Netherlands are most probably by the hand of Wirix too. Artisticity may have been a Wirix family feature, because Anthonie's sister Victoire Leonhardt-Wirix (1875–1938) was an artist with a lifelong passion for painting and drawing. Examples of Antonie's miniatures below illustrate the first three segments of canto XV of The divine Comedy. Dante (in red) and his guide Virgil walk along the banks of an infernal water stream and in the canto a comparison between Flemish and Italian water defences is made. Dante study In the Netherlands around 1900 the interest in the ancient Italian culture and language revitalized. In 1904 the Dutch Department of Internal Affairs grounded the 'Nederlandsch Instituut' (Dutch Institute) in Rome (at present the Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome (KNIR)), to catalogue the documents on Dutch history in the just released Vatican archives. From the beginning the institute also stimulated the research of Roman Antiquity and art. In 1914 the first Dutch branches of the 'Società Dante Alighieri' (Dante Alighieri Society) in Rome were grounded, to provide Italian cultural events in the Netherlands. In 1919 and 1920 the Universities in Groningen and Leiden appointed their first tutor Italian language. The keen interest in Dante's works is