Baron Trenck’s Unraveled Secrets

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Baron Trenck in contemporary records and literature

Trenck’s Footprints in Europe

Europe of the 18^th century is swept away by power struggles. The Austrian Empire has to defend its dominant role against the Ottoman Empire in the early decades. Later, Prussia and others take their chance. The Russian Empire is not safe from invading Ottoman warriors either.

But baron von der Trenck does not know any borders. He sees opportunities to build his military career and gain booty. Centuries later, his travels and experiences inspire some to call him one of the biggest adventurers of the 1700s.

He was born in Italian Reggio di Calabria ( ), but the family followed the father to numerous places on his military journeys. Six-year old Franz even accompanies his father during storming of Belgrade ( ).

While a military career was lined up for him from the youngest age, his mother insisted on giving him a solid education, among others in Vienna.

Even though the Trenck family possessed a profitable dominion in surroundings of Brestovac (today’s Croatia, ), the baron spent only relatively short periods of time administrating it.

He was much more interested in military service. He was a skilled leader and demonstrated exceptional courage on numerous occasions ( ).

Other times, he was extremely lucky and survived serious injuries ( ), including a gun powder exploration ( ) in German Dießenstein fortress.

It was the combination of baron’s repeated cruel actions, his handling independent of the imperial administration in the Brestovac area when fighting with robbers, a growing crowd of offended opponents and probably also his increasing wealth, which resulted in his imprisonment in the Špilberk fortress in Brno, the harshest prison of the Austrian Empire ( ).

Trenck’s Character

Baron von der Treck was a man of many talents: a skilled and invincible swordsman, a fearless warrior and strong leader, a man fluent in seven languages, a talented violin player and a dancer, an admirer of English literature, including the work of Shakespeare.

In strong contrast was his very explosive nature, cruelty and lack of respect to authorities. He had to deal with personal tragedies such as death of her wife and all four children which undoubtedly formed his character. After these tragedies, he focused on the military career fully and became a feared commander of his pandur troops who were audacious but also fierce warriors, and baron himself had no mercy on those who did not obey his commands.

As his career progressed, the number of opponents grew, and (false) accusations and plots against his person accumulated, eventually leading to life imprisonment.

In the final months of his life in Brno, religion gained on importance for him. He was in frequent contact with local Capuchin friars. In his testament, he not only left money to the order but also expressed a wish to be buried in the Capuchin tomb in accordance with the order’s tradition: in simple clothing, on bare ground and with two bricks under the head. His last wish was fulfilled and thanks to the stable conditions in the tomb, his body was naturally mummified.

Extraordinary in his character, appearance and life experiences, legends about baron Trenck were created already during his lifetime, with more “guaranteed true” stories added in the decades after his death.

But which of the legends are true?
And how did the baron really look like?

A multidisciplinary team of medical doctors and anthropologists, historians and computer graphic designers, supported by clerics maintaining the Capuchin tomb in Brno, came together in a three-year research project to compile as complete picture as possible.

Let’s Reveal the Mummy’s Secrets Together

The mummy of baron von der Trenck is over 270 years old and while not many soft tissues could resist the degradation processes, resistant structures such as bones, teeth and some cartridges show high degree of preservation.

Did you spot it?

This little box?

It houses baron’s left thumb.

The thumb was separated from the rest of the body in the second half of the 19^th century. Someone had a reason to seize the thumb as an odd relic. Was it a desire to possess something special? Or did they believe that the thumb of fearless warrior will give them some special skills?

These questions will probably remain unanswered but the thumb became a subject of anthropological examination before returning it back to the rest of the body in 2017.

Group of researchers developed a non-invasive method combining blue-light surface scanning and digital texture processing to capture fingerprints from the thumb. Quality of the resulting fingerprint would be sufficient for unique identification as used in modern forensics.

The cause of death could not be unequivocally determined but legends do not need scientific conclusions. One of them says that the baron was beheaded after his death. Based on mummy’s examination, this could be excluded and the most likely explanation for head’s separation from the rest of the body is much less prosaic: degradation of soft tissues together with the bricks placed under the head and body’s pressure on the back part.

Baron’s body build-up

Baron’s skeleton is very well preserved and highly complete. Based on hundreds of CT scans, it was possible to fully reconstruct it. A handful of missing structures (shown in red) were added based on typical human anatomy and to proportionally match the preserved bones.

With height of 185 cm (6.07 feet), baron Trenck reached above-average body height - not only back in the 18^th century (average height of male was less than 170 cm) but also in comparison to today’s population.

The shape of baron’s rib cage suggests a large space for lungs and other organs. However, whether this gave him any advantage in physically demanding activities such as in duelling or horse riding remains a speculation.

A prominent feature are his long, thin but strong fingers and unusually long metacarpal bones. Such hand anatomy gives both strong grip (e.g., when holding a sabre) and fine control of fingers (e.g., when playing a violin). In other words, he was predisposed to be a skilled swordsman and violin player. The historical sources do not lie.

A skeleton can tell us more than only person’s height. Life style and injuries leave permanent marks and the skeleton of baron Trenck revealed a lot in that regard.

Both hips show specific structural changes which are possibly caused be regular horse riding.

Minor asymmetry between left and right half of the body is natural and reflects e.g., preferential limb usage. We can thus say that baron von der Trenck was a right-handed person. Other asymmetries are a result of person’s behavior or even medical issues.

Both tibia (shin) and fibula show clear signs of a healed splinter fracture. The contemporary records mention a cannon ball injury in a battle at Kolín in 1744. The anthropological investigations reveal how serious the injury actually was:

Baron’s left leg shortened by 2 cm after the injury. In tibia, moreover, there are clear signs of a bone inflammation which very likely turned into a chronic state, causing pain throughout the rest of his life.

The facial part of baron’s skull shows asymmetry between left and right halves - for example, in eye sockets and teeth alignment. The researches could find an explanation: it is a consequence of preferentially chewing with left molars.

This is clear from unequal attrition of tooth enamel (shown in white) on the molars.

Baron’s appearance

Baron’s overall body build-up was strong as suggested by overall bone robustness and increased joint size. We can thus conclude on a well developed musculature during his life. The mummy alone was sufficient to model arms and legs. For remaining body parts, knowledge of human anatomy and general principals about relative body part sizes and tissue thickness was essential.

It is however hair colour and hair style, skin tone and also clothing which truly identify a person in everyday life.

The research project aimed at full restoration of baron’s appearance and the information revealed by mummy’s examination thus needed to be supplemented by (very limited) contemporary records such as parents’ origin (determines most likely hair colour and skin tone).

Historical records mention that after the gun powder explosion in Dießenstein, gun powder rests remained in baron’s skin. Since heavy metal rests were revealed on the mummy’s surface, this visual characteristics was included in the final model.

Figure 9: Visualization of baron von der Trenck’s face

For a full body reconstruction, knowledge about typical clothing style and materials used in 1740s and by people of Trenck’s status was used.

To add on individuality and plausibility, all visualizations were placed into 1748, the time of baron’s imprisonment in Špilberk. This required consideration of his biological age together with potential consequences of his deduced life style and expected impact of the past injuries. The timing also determined the choice of clothing which is why he does not wear a military uniform.

At the latest stage of the project, modern technologies - including software used in film and gaming industries - came into play to create a full-body visual reconstruction of the capable but also hated 18^th century military officer.

Meet baron von der Trenck

Figure 10: Visualization of baron von der Trenck

Acknowledgments and resources

This scrollytelling presents a research project conducted between 2016 and 2019: “The outputs were created in collaboration between Masaryk University, the Brno City Museum, and the Capuchin Province in the Czech Republic.”

Literature

Černohorský, Daniel. 2024. “Ďábelský Pandur.” Tajemství České Minulosti, 8–13.

Interactive, Things. 2024. “Historical World Atlas.” GitHub Repository. https://github.com/interactivethings/historical-world-atlas; GitHub.

Kašpar, Petr. 2009. “František Svobodný Pán Trenck, Zakladatel a Vůdce Pandurských Oddílů.” Bachelor's thesis. Brno, Czech Republic: Masaryk University, Faculty of Philosophy. https://is.muni.cz/th/r85xe/.

Niedl, František. 2024. Baron Trenck: Až Na Hranici Pekel. MOBA.

Urbanová, Petra, Mikoláš Jurda, Miroslav Kralik, Ctibor Ostrý, and Petr Vachůt. 2019. “How to Fingerprint a Nearly 300-Year-Old Mummy.” Journal of Forensic Identification 69:456–68.

Urbanová, Petra, and Petr Vachůt. 2020. Baron Trenck: Nová Tvář Legendy. Galén.

Wikipedia. 2024. “Pandur — Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.” http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pandur&oldid=1254279163.

Figures

Fig 1 was created with ChatGPT: image generator
Fig 2 from Wikipedia (2024)
Fig 3 from Černohorský (2024)
Figs 4, 5, 6 & 7 from Urbanová and Vachůt (2020)
Fig 10 provided by Rudo Turiak

Disclaimer:
The main focus of this scrollytelling contribution is on the scientific examinations of baron von der Trenck’s mummy and his eventful life and complicated personality do not therefore get as much attention as they would deserve.