Martin Bodmer
Martin Bodmer ( born November 13, 1899 in Zurich, † March 21, 1971 in Geneva) was a Swiss collector and patron.
Life
Martin Bodmer was born as the son of wealthy parents in Zurich, where he lived until 1948 in Bodmer 's country seat Freudenberg in Zurich -Enge. He spent several semesters studying German literature and philosophy and founded in 1921 the Gottfried Keller Prize. In 1930 he founded the bi-monthly magazine, " Corona ", which was published until 1943 in Munich. When the Second World War, he was committed to the International Committee of the Red Cross and became its vice president. During the Second World War, many famous journalists and writers stayed in Bodmer 's estate in Zurich, says Rudolf Borchardt, Selma Lagerlof, Rudolf Alexander Schröder and Paul Valéry. Martin Bodmer was from 1964 honorary member of the Grolier Club.
Biblioteca Bodmeriana
He dedicated his whole life to its exceptional collection of books. In 1928 the villa was Freudenberg for his collection too small, and he acquired an adjacent former school house to house his collection in it. After moving to Cologny in Geneva, he spent 1951 his collection there, where he brought his " library of world literature " or Bibliotheca Bodmeriana in specially designed buildings. Bodmer's goal was to use his library to include the " Human- whole".
Bodmer was 150,000 plants in eighty languages from three millennia together, including about the oldest almost completely preserved manuscript (2nd century ) of St. John's Gospel, the original of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, the only copy of the Gutenberg Bible in the Switzerland, the autographs of a string quintet by Mozart, the prose version of Lessing's " Nathan the Wise " of Flaubert's " Madame Bovary " by Thomas Mann's " the Beloved " or valuable papyri from ancient times - about the only almost fully intact copy of a Comedy of the Athenian poet Menander, the Dyskolos - and countless first editions of important works.
The collection is now cared for by the Martin Bodmer Foundation and expanded.