Martin Bodmer

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Martin Bodmer.
The Martin Bodmer Foundation in Geneva.

Martin Bodmer (November 13, 1899 – March 22, 1971) was a

bibliophile, scholar and collector
.

Biography

Martin Bodmer was born in

Gottfried Keller Prize, a renowned Swiss literary award.[5] In 1930 he founded the bimonthly "Corona," which was published until 1943 in Munich.[6] With the start of the Second World War he devoted himself to the International Committee of the Red Cross and became its vice president. During the Second World War, many famous writers and journalists stayed in Bodmer's house in Zurich, including Rudolf Borchardt, Selma Lagerlöf, Rudolf Alexander Schröder, and Paul Valéry
.

He started collecting rare books at the age of 16 and devoted all his life to create an extraordinary library of world literature. Bodmer selected the works centering on what he saw as the five pillars of world literature: the

autographs and first editions. In 1928 the villa was too small for his collection and he bought an adjacent former school building to accommodate his books. After the war he resumed his long-standing project to build a "Library of world literature", or "Bodmer Library" in specially designed buildings, collecting the most significant messages of humankind, including not only literature and art, but also religion, history and politics. He left Zurich and transferred its collection to Cologny, just outside Geneva, on the shores of Lake Geneva.[2]

Bodmer amassed 150,000 works in eighty languages, including first editions of major works, the

Mozart, the prose version of Gotthold Lessing's Nathan the Wise, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Thomas Mann's Lotte in Weimar, original editions of Don Quixote, Goethe's Faust, and valuable papyri, known as Bodmer Papyri, from ancient times, including a papyrus manuscript dating to the third century of the complete Dyskolos, an Ancient Greek comedy by Menander,[7] which was recovered and published in 1959. Bodmer extended its project to cuneiform
tablets and ancient coins.

Before his death, Bodmer refused the proposal of Harry H. Ransom who offered him $60 million (1971) to buy the collection[8]. With his children’s consent, Bodmer placed his collection at the heart of the Martin Bodmer Foundation, a private cultural institution headquartered in Cologny, which continues to manage and expand the collection.

References

  1. ^ a b Koch, Hans-Albrecht: Spiegel der Welt: Die Bibliotheca Bodmeriana zu Gast im Schiller-Nationalmuseum / Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach (in German)
  2. ^ a b Méla, Charles, Légendes des siècles: Parcours d'une collection mythique, Paris : Cercle d'Art, 2004, p. 28
  3. ^ Gagnebin, Bernard, La Fondation Bodmer : Une source capitale pour la recherche à Genève, Cologny: Fondation Martin Bodmer, 1993, p. 3.
  4. ^ Bircher, Martin, « Martin Bodmer, sein Leben, seine Bücher », Spiegel der Welt : Handschriften und Bücher aus drei Jahrtausenden (catalogue d’exposition), I, Cologny : Fondation Martin Bodmer, 2000, p. 16
  5. ^ Méla, Charles, Légendes des siècles: Parcours d'une collection mythique, Paris : Cercle d'Art, 2004, p. 29
  6. ^ "Neunzig Jahre "Corona"". adz.ro. Retrieved 2023-04-07.
  7. ^ Gagnebin, Bernard, La Fondation Bodmer : Une source capitale pour la recherche à Genève, Cologny: Fondation Martin Bodmer, 1993, p. 11-12.
  8. ISBN 9782916120904
    .

External links
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