‘Tis Joust a Flesh Wound: A Fiber-Arts Model of Gregor Baci’s Facial Injury with a Lance

“The portrait painting of Hungarian nobleman Gregor Baci has fascinated viewers since the sixteenth century: While little is known of his life, his head is immortalized as being skewered by a lance. The story is that while jousting he was pierced through the eye by a lance that went through the back of his head, but he survived the injury. Doubts about the veracity of this event have persisted over the centuries, but a modern case report described a patient who suffered a similar nonfatal injury. I was captivated by Baci’s alert, though bloodied, eye in his portrait and wanted to honor his story by recreating the image via fiber arts. Using knitting and crocheting techniques, I constructed a life-sized fiber-arts replica of a jousting lance that pierces a model of Gregor Baci’s head. This unique cranial injury is of interest to the practicing neurologist, and this fiber-arts model serves as a point of discussion at the medical center where I practice.”