Bodmer Library
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Bibliotheca Bodmeriana (or Bodmer Library) is located in Cologny, Switzerland just outside Geneva. The library was established by Martin Bodmer. It is famous as the home of the Bodmer Papyri. Some of these papyri are among the oldest remaining copies of the New Testament. Some manuscripts are written in Greek, other in Coptic (f.e. Papyrus Bodmer III). First form the manuscripts was purchased in 1956 (Papyrus Bodmer II — P66). It also houses a copy of the Gutenberg Bible.
History
Martin Bodmer established the library in the 1920s. Bodmer selected the works centering around what he saw as the five pillars of world literature: Bible, Homer, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He prioritized autographs and first editions. 1951 Bodmer had built two neo-baroque houses in Cologny to accommodate the collection. In 1970, shortly before Bodmer's death, the Fondation Martin Bodmer was established to make the collection accessible and conserve it. 2003 the building was remodeled by Mario Botta. He connected the cellars of the two houses by a two-story underground structure, pierced by light shafts.
Items
The collection comprises some 160,000 items, including Sumerian clay tablets, Greek papyri and handwritten originals including music sheets. He aimed at representing the historical context by adding political, philosophical and scientific items. Some samples are:
- Oldest surviving copy of the Gospel of James
- A Gutenberg Bible, 1452
- First edition print of Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses, 1517
- A copy of Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica once owned by Gottfried Leibniz
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's draft manuscript of Nathan the Wise, 1778
- Papyrus 66, Papyrus 73 and Papyrus 74
- Original manuscript scroll of The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis De Sade.
- Minuscule 556
