BODMER, b. Johann Jakob, literary critic: Greifensee, Switzerland, 19 July 1698; d. Zurich, 2 Jan. 1783. With Breit Inger from 1721-23 he issued the periodical Diskurse der Maier, in which German poetry was severely criticised for its servility to French models. Based on national and ancient stand ards, he formed a German literary school in opposition to Gottsched of Leipzig, with whom he carried on a prolonged controversy to the final discomfiture of his opponent. He trans lated Milton's 'Paradise Lost,' wrote poems and dramas of no signal merit, but published valuable editions of older German poets. For 50 years he was professor of Swiss history and politics in Zurich. Bodmer was appointed pro fessor of history at Zurich in 1725. Perhaps his greatest service to German letters were his editions of the (Minnesingers) and of part of the (Nibelungenlied.) BODONI, Giambattista, Italian printer and type-cutter: b. Saluzzo, Piedmont, 1740; d. Padua, 29 Nov. 1813. His father owned a printing establishment at Saluzzo, and he began, while yet a boy, to employ himself in engraving on wood. In 1758 he went to Rome
and was made compositor on the press of the Propaganda. He there made himself master of Oriental languages and restored in place the types of several alphabets which had fallen into disorder. About 1766 Bodoni was placed at the head of the Duke of Parma's private press, which he made the first of the kind in Europe, and gained the reputation of having far sur passed all the splendid and beautiful produc tions of his predecessors in the art; but the in trinsic value of his editions is seldom equal to their outward splendor. His Homer is a mag nificent work; indeed, his Greek letters are the most perfect imitations of Greek manuscript that have been attempted in modern times. He printed the Lord's Prayer in 155 languages. His splendid editions of Greek, Latin, Italian and French classics are highly prized.