« Quiconque le peut doit chercher à ouvrir en quelque sorte une fenêtre du côté de l’Italie »

Abstract The most important part of the production of the Danish Romanist Kristoffer Nyrop (1858–1931) focuses on French, but he has also laid the foundations for the teaching of Italian in Denmark. The grammar and the textbooks which he devised have been thoroughly studied by Viggo Bank Jensen. This article aims to analyse his contribution to the study of the Italian language, literature and civilization. Besides some studies on lexicology Nyrop was especially interested in the study of Italian folk tales. After losing his sight he concentrated on writing for the general public, as evidenced by the 74 contributions published in the newspaper Politiken , a dozen of which deal with “Italian“ topics.