Swiss open literary heritage museum

Swiss officials opened a museum of world literary heritage Friday with manuscripts and volumes ranging from an Egyptian Book of the Dead to a first edition of Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto.”

The museum, built underground in Geneva’s Cologny suburb by Swiss architect Mario Botta, also displays priceless editions of key texts of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as classics from Japanese and Chinese literature.

Based on the collection of one-time senior International Committee of the Red Cross official Martin Bodmer and named after him, its construction was largely financed by the sale of a Michelangelo drawing in 1998.

In the new Bodmer Museum, under a terrace between the two buildings of the old library that looks out over Lake Geneva, many items are displayed suspended in glass cases.