The charts were included in a 1541 edition of Claudius Ptolemy’s collected works, ‘Omnia quae extant opera’; they were first published separately in 1532. The charts, with some slight variations, were used in Hieronimus Gourmontius’s typography in Paris to illustrate a work of 1552. The work by Arato which was published in Paris by Guillaume Morel in 1559, ‘Arati Solensis, Phaenomena et prognostica’ is illustrated with two woodcuts which take references from the Honter charts apart from some variations regarding the planispheres’ frames. Morel’s map is accompanied by a list of constellations in Greek and Latin and by another list in agreement with the Ausonius interpretation.

This chart shows the ‘Constellationum Borealium’ (Northern Hemisphere) and pairs with the ‘Constellationum Australium’ (Southern Hemisphere) from the 1541 edition of Claudius Ptolemy’s collected works (see SC-CM-1541-Honter-Star

South).

The stars are represented by dots, with particularly bright ones shown as a six-pointed star. Interestingly, Honter shifted the longitude 30° from the correct position for the year 1532, possibly to reflect an earlier epoch. Both Northern and Southern charts are in stereographic projection and depict the Almagest stars until the sixth magnitude. The stars are not graded and are wrongly positioned, as can also be noted from the meeting of the Ecliptic with the Equator. In the centre of each sheet are projections of the two ecliptic poles; therefore, their perimeters represent the 

 circle, and the constellations are depicted on both maps. Also included are projections of the two terrestrial poles, the polar circles, the tropics, and the Equator. The longitude lines are represented by 30° cloves and can be read with the precision of 1°.

Johannes Honter, or Honterus (1498–1549), from Romania, studied at the University of Vienna, settled briefly in Kraków, where he taught at the Knights' Academy in Nuremberg, before moving to Augsburg, then Basel, where he learned printing. He first created a set of star charts, and then the first map of Transylvania, ‘Chorographia Transylvaniae – Sybembürgen’ (1532). Following these ventures, he returned to Braşov in Romania and became a leading advocate of ecclesiastical reform in Transylvania. 

Honter’s star charts were included in a 1541 edition of Claudius Ptolemy’s collected works, ‘Omnia uae extant opera’ but were first published separately in 1532. Whereas earlier printed examples of star charts, like 

’s pair of charts printed in 1515 (see SC-TM-1515[1781]-Durer-WorldMap), showed the constellations from the perspective of the heavens (a God’s-eye view), Honter’s charts were the first to adopt a geocentric perspective. This represented a shift from a classical worldview of the heavens to a Humanist belief in the centrality of human reason to understand the world. 

Although Honter, like Dürer, relied on the classical astronomical work of Ptolemy’s ‘Almagest’ (see SC-B-1496-Ptolemy-Almagest) as the basis for his charts, he chose to dress the human constellations in modern garments, initiating a tradition of styling the constellations in contemporary costume.

Johannes Hontor’s two star charts, representing the Northern and Southern Hemispheres were first published individually in 1532 and, later, together in 1541. This chart shows the constellations of the Northern Hemisphere (‘Constellationum Borealium’) from the 1541 edition. This is the first time that the constellations are represented in concave projection and some, such as Auriga, Boote, and Perseus – in strong contrast with the previous tradition – are dressed in contemporary costumes.

The first printed geocentric star charts, as projected from the Earth rather than the Heavens, while maintaining the earth at the centre of the Universe.

Honter's Star Chart of the Northern Hemisphere