10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Never Knew About Hannibal Lecter

One of the more interesting features of Hannibal Lecter's character is not only his dizzying intellect but that of his 'Memory Palace,' a metaphorical building of immense size and beauty, where Lecter is able to store information for instant retrieval and also a place to retreat to when experiencing moments of trauma or mental exertion.

Thomas Harris writes of Lecter:

"The memory palace was mnemonic system well known to ancient scholars and much information was preserved in them through the Dark Ages while Vandals burned the books. Like scholars before him, Dr. Lecter stores an enormous amount of information keyed to objects in his thousand rooms, but unlike the ancients, Dr. Lecter has a second purpose for his palace; sometimes he lives there. He has passed years among its exquisite collections, while his body lay bound on a violent ward with screams buzzing the steel bars like hell's own harp."

In the TV series, Hannibal recounts to Will Graham that his "memory Palace is vast, even by medieval standards," which for a mind as complex and knowledgable, makes perfect sense. Lecter's time spent in incarceration would have been unbearable for someone like him, if not for the immediate escapism of his Memory Palace, a place where his mind could exist in peace and serenity as his physical body endured the solitude, boredom and mental duress of Dr. Chilton and his "petty torments."