Martin Bodmer
{{short description|Swiss scholar (1899–1971)}}
File:Martin Bodmer au CICR.jpg
File:Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland - 20140614-04.JPG in Geneva.]]
Martin Bodmer (November 13, 1899 – March 22, 1971) was a Swiss bibliophile, scholar and collector.
Biography
Martin Bodmer was born in Zurich in 1899, the son of Hans Conrad Bodmer (1851-1916) and Mathilde Zoelly. His father died in 1916 leaving a very large fortune. His mother ran a literary salon which was frequented by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Paul Valéry, a friend of the family.Méla, Charles, Légendes des siècles: Parcours d'une collection mythique, Paris : Cercle d'Art, 2004, p. 28 In 1918, Bodmer began studying German language at the University of Zurich and spent a semester at the University of HeidelbergGagnebin, Bernard, La Fondation Bodmer : Une source capitale pour la recherche à Genève, Cologny: Fondation Martin Bodmer, 1993, p. 3. where he took a course from Friedrich Gundolf.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 Eventually, he gave up his studies and took a trip to United States and Paris. He studied a few semesters of philosophy and in 1921 he founded the Gottfried Keller Prize, a renowned Swiss literary award.Méla, Charles, Légendes des siècles: Parcours d'une collection mythique, Paris : Cercle d'Art, 2004, p. 29 In 1930 he founded the bimonthly "Corona," which was published until 1943 in Munich.{{Cite web |title=Neunzig Jahre "Corona" |url=https://adz.ro/artikel/artikel/neunzig-jahre-corona |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=adz.ro |language=en}} 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 Bible, Homer, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.Koch, Hans-Albrecht: [http://www.aski.org/kb2_00/kb200marbach2a.htm Spiegel der Welt: Die Bibliotheca Bodmeriana zu Gast im Schiller-Nationalmuseum / Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach] {{in lang|de}} He prioritized 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.
Bodmer amassed 150,000 works in eighty languages, including first editions of major works, the Papyrus 66 which is one of the oldest almost completely preserved manuscripts of John's Gospel (2nd century), the original of Grimms' Fairy Tales, the only copies of the Gutenberg Bible and the Shakespeare First Folio in Switzerland, a string quintet by 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,Gagnebin, Bernard, La Fondation Bodmer : Une source capitale pour la recherche à Genève, Cologny: Fondation Martin Bodmer, 1993, p. 11-12. 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{{Cite book |last=Erne |first=Lukas |title=Shakespeare in Geneva: Early Modern English Books (1475-1700) at the Martin Bodmer Foundation |last2=Singh |first2=Devani |publisher=Les Éditions d’Ithaque |year=2018 |isbn=9782916120904 |location=Geneva |pages=27}}. 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
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External links
- [http://www.fondationbodmer.org Bodmer Foundation] — official web-site (in French).
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20070928094518/http://www.gottfried-keller-preis.ch/site/geschichte/mbodmer.php?language=fr Biography of Martin Bodmer (in French and German)]
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