Martin Bodmer (private scholar)

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Martin Bodmer (born November 13, 1899 in Zurich ; † March 21, 1971 in Geneva ) was a Swiss private scholar , collector and patron .

Martin Bodmer in his office in the Comité international de la Croix-Rouge (CICR)

Life

Martin Bodmer was born as the son of wealthy parents in Zurich, where he lived in Bodmer's country estate Freudenberg in Zurich-Enge until 1948. His older brother was the future Beethoven collector Hans Conrad Bodmer . He studied German and philosophy for a few semesters in Zurich and Heidelberg and in 1921 founded the foundation for the Gottfried Keller Prize for the award of good literary works. In 1924 Bodmer acquired the Muraltengut and had the wall paintings done by Karl Walser . In 1930 he founded the two-month publication Corona, which was published in Munich until 1943. With the beginning of the Second World War he became involved in the International Committee of the Red Cross and became its vice-president. During the Second World War, numerous famous journalists and writers stayed at the Bodmer estate in Zurich, such as Rudolf Borchardt , Selma Lagerlöf , Rudolf Alexander Schröder and Paul Valéry . Martin Bodmer was an honorary member of the Grolier Club from 1964 .

Bodmer Cologny 4
Bibliotheca Bodmeriana in Cologny

Biblioteca Bodmeriana

He dedicated his whole life to his extraordinary book collection. Since 1919 he collected the books to build a library of world literature. Emil Roninger tried to do something similar next to his Rotapfel-Verlag, a trust agency for world literature . As early as 1928, the Villa Freudenberg was too small for his collection, and he bought a neighboring former school house to house his collection. After moving to Cologny near Geneva in 1951, he also moved his collection there, where he housed his “Library of World Literature” or Bibliotheca Bodmeriana in specially designed buildings. Bodmer's goal was to encompass the “human whole” with his library.

Bodmer brought together 150,000 works in eighty languages ​​from three millennia, including the oldest almost completely preserved manuscript of the Gospel of John ( Bodmer II papyrus from the 2nd century), the original of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales , the only copy of the Gutenberg Bible in Switzerland, the autographs of a string quintet by Mozart , the prose version of Lessing's “ Nathan the Wise ”, of Flaubert's “ Madame Bovary ”, of Thomas Mann's “ Lotte in Weimar ” or valuable papyri from antiquity - about the only almost completely preserved copy a comedy by the Athenian poet Menandros , the Dyskolos - and countless first editions of important works.

Today the collection is looked after and expanded by the Martin Bodmer Foundation . In 2014 the University of Geneva started to digitize part of the collection. The digitized material will be available online.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Doris Wild, Architecture and Art, 1934: Pages 18-26, Muraltengut, wall painting by Karl Walser. Retrieved October 27, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Martin Bodmer: On the subject of world literature, June 8, 1947. Retrieved October 27, 2019 .
  3. ^ Journal of the Swiss Bibliophile Society: Opening of the Walter Bodmer Foundation, June 8, 1972. Retrieved October 27, 2019 .
  4. ^ "Library of World Literature" digitized . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , May 30, 2014, p. 51.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bodmer, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss collectors and patrons
DATE OF BIRTH November 13, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1971
Place of death Geneva , Switzerland