Got this from
here interesting...
Quote: As the lyrics do state "Several years ago..."
JP was an adult when this happened. But he was scared for good reason.
Pay particular attention to the lines:
Maybe you'll recall
A cannibal curator
A character inspired
By my brother's life.
The Count of Tuscany is taking him to the man that the character
HANNIBAL LECTER was based off of. Yea, you know, the elegant psycopath
from "The Silence of the Lambs"? (In the second film "Hannibal"
he becomes the new curator of the Capponi Library under the name "Dr. Fell")
The reason JP was frightened was because he thought he was going to
be KILLED, SLAUGHTERED, AND EATEN. I'd say that's a good enough reason
as any to be afraid as a grown man!
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Quote: The Hannibal Lecter connection makes sense, but I'm still not sure
who the "count" is. The only possibility I could think of is
Pietro Pacciani's brother.
Pacciani lived in Italy and is believed to have inspired the
Hannibal character, but he died in 1998. It could be his brother
was showing Petrucci a photograph, except as far as I know, Pacciani
was neither bearded nor a historian.
There are, however, conspiracy theories floating around on the internet
that try to connect him with a satanic cult and a certain pedophile priest,
which might help explain this paragraph:
"Would you like to see
Our secret holy place
I come here late at night
To pray to him by candlelight
Then peering through the glass
I saw with disbelief
Still dressed in royal clothes
The saint behind the altar"
Perhaps this was taking place in Petrucci's imagination, and
the "count" explained to him that they were "fables and tales all
handed down through time". It's a stretch, I admit, but it's the
best I could come up with.
If anyone else has an idea who this mysterious count might be,
I'm very curious about it.