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Artist
Johannes Honter (also known as Johann Hynter; Latinized as Johann Honterus or Ioannes Honterus; Romanian sources may credit him as Ioan, Hungarian ones as János; 1498 – January 23, 1549) was a Transylvanian Saxon, renaissance humanist and theologian. Honter is best known for his geographic and cartographic publishing activity, as well as for implementing the Lutheran reform in Transylvania. Born in Braşov (Kronstadt, Brassó), Transylvania, nowadays Romania, he studied at the University of Vienna between 1520 and 1525, graduating with a magister artium title. As the Ottomans approached Vienna in 1529 (see Siege of Vienna), Honter moved first to Regensburg, and, in 1530, he registered at the Kraków's Jagiellonian University (in Poland) as "Johannes Georgii de Corona, artium magister Viennensis" (Corona is medieval Latin for Braşov). It was in Kraków that he published his first books, a Latin grammar and cosmography manual. Between 1530 and 1532 he lived in Basel and practiced wood engraving, notably designing two star maps that already show his advanced skills in the craft. In the same time period he often traveled to his native Transylvania, gathering information that was to serve in his design of a map of Transylvania, commonly known as Siebenbuergen,[1] one that he engraved and printed in Basel, and the very first one of the region to be printed. The only known copy of the map survives in the National Library of Hungary. It is known that Honter was not pleased with the ma