Gregor Baci

Gregor Baci, oil painting by an unknown painter, 16th century

Copper engraving around 1695 of the person referred to here as Paksy Gergely or Baksa Márk

Gregor Baci ( Germanized ), Hungarian Gergely Paksy (* 16th century; † 16th century) was a Hungarian nobleman who suffered a serious head injury from a lance , which according to tradition he should have survived for another year. His fate is passed on, among other things, through a portrait of an unknown German painter in the chamber of art and curiosities of Archduke Ferdinand II at Ambras Castle in Innsbruck .

identity

The identity of the man and the exact cause of his injury are not known beyond doubt and there are several versions around it. According to the legend belonging to the painting in Ambras Castle, the sitter is Gregor Baci, but the name on the painting can also be read as Gregor Baxi. This is said to have suffered his injury from a tournament lance in a knightly joust . An inventory from 1621 contradicts this, according to which he received the injury during a fight against the Ottoman Turks and survived it by a year. According to Józef Bánlaky, a Gergely Paksy suffered a head injury from a Turkish lance, which he also survived for some time. Gregor Baci is apparently the Germanized spelling of the Hungarian name Gergely Paksy. So this is most likely the same person.

Lore

The portrait of Gregor Bacis was created around 1550 by an unknown German painter. It was painted in oil on canvas and measures 31 × 39 cm. The picture was first listed in an inventory in 1621 and belongs to the collection of Schloss Ambras Innsbruck . The inscription Gregor. BAXI VNG: NOB: in the top left corner, the person portrayed is identified as the Hungarian nobleman Gregor Baci. It shows the chest portrait of a young man in half profile looking to the left. He wears a blue, high-necked piebald , his head is extensively shaved on the left side, and a healed scar is visible on the scalp. Baci has a mustache and a shaved full beard. Its head is pierced by a white lance , which is decorated with a spiral brown ribbon with a red feather pattern. The lance entered Baci's head through the right eye and emerges again in the neck area. In the face, the entry wound is represented by a wreath of small drops of blood on the bridge of the nose. Bloody, ragged skin tissue is depicted at the exit point . The left eye is swollen, bloodshot and protruding a little from the eye socket. In addition to this painting, there is a copper engraving by Gergely Paksy, which almost completely resembles the Ambras painting and is said to have been made in 1598. In contrast to the painting, the man on the engraving wears a quilted collar with rectangular buttons. Not only the lance damage, but also the person depicted is almost identical to Baci's portrait at Ambras Castle.

Medical aspects

How faithfully the accident situation is reproduced in the painting can no longer be determined with certainty today, as it is not known whether the painter made the picture in the presence of Baci or based on reports.

According to the identification of the painting, the lance penetrated the head through the right eye socket and emerged again from the skull in the neck . The redness and the emergence ( exophthalmos ) of the left eye is probably due to a cavernous sinus - fistula back. Gregor Baci's injury was treated by sawing off the lance at the point of entry and exit. Other recent cases with similar injury patterns confirm that such injuries can be survived. Due skeptical reactions of museum visitors on the traditional survival time of one year after Baci's accident, the case of the was radiologists , radiation oncologists and neurologists of the Medical University of Innsbruck investigated. For this purpose, the two-dimensional data of the painting were transferred to a three-dimensional model of an anonymous patient's skull and a model of Baci's head injury was created using rapid prototyping . The medics confirmed the historical report and the possibility that Baci could survive the injury by a year. Under favorable circumstances, the lance had pierced the skull below the brain. If the meninges were not injured in the process, the risk of sepsis of the brain occurring was not very high, which suggests that Bacis has a high chance of survival. The doctors are very likely to assume that Baci, despite the severity of his injury, did not have any significant impairments and that such an injury could, under favorable circumstances, survive for several years. It is also assumed that lead paints in the lance had an antiseptic effect on the wound canal. A 3D model of the skull with the lance wound is on display next to the painting in the exhibition at Ambras Castle.

literature

• Laurin Luchner: Ambras Castle for Doctors . In: Medical monthly mirror . Volume 3, 1967, p. 60-64 .

Web links

• Impaled by comparison (accessed July 11, 2012)
• Peter Walther: Injuries of the eye (PDF) Lecture at the University Hospital Aachen.
• Historical riddle about lance in the head solved on ORF

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Paksy Gergely. (No longer available online.) In: Nemzeti Portrétár. Archived from the original on December 12, 2013 ; Retrieved February 25, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Laurin Luchner: Ambras Castle for Doctors . In: Medical monthly mirror . Volume 3, 1967, p. 60-64 .
3. ↑ Józef Banlaky: A magyar nemzet hadtörténelme . O Arcanum, Budapest 2001, ISBN 963-86118-7-1 (Hungarian, online [accessed February 25, 2013]).
4. ↑ Helmuth Oehler: Medicine solves historical riddle . In: Hello: magazine for employees of TILAK company health . No. 69 , April 2012, p. 24 ( helmuth-oehler.at [PDF; 1.8 MB ]). Medicine solves historical riddle ( memento of the original from November 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Jens Martin Rohrbach: Historical aspects . In: Jens Martin Rohrbach, Klaus-Peter Steuhl, Marcus Knorr, Bernd Kirchhof (eds.): Ophthalmological Traumatology - Textbook and Atlas . Schattauer, Stuttgart / New York 2002, ISBN 3-7945-2041-6 , pp. 13 .
6. ^ Martin Missmann, Thomas Tauscher, Siegfried Jank, Frank Kloss, Robert Gassner: Impaled head . In: The Lancet . No. 375 , January 23, 2010, doi : 10.1016 / S0140-6736 (09) 60294-4 (English).
7. ↑ Helmuth Oehler, B. Hoffmann: Scientific proof successful: Art meets medical technology. In: press release. Innsbruck Medical University, January 14, 2013, accessed on February 23, 2013 . 
8. ↑ Mystery of a man pierced by a lance solved after 400 years. In: Tyrolean daily newspaper. February 23, 2013, accessed March 3, 2020 .