thumb|Saladinus, by Cristofano dell'Altissimo, ante 1568 Saladin was widely renowned in medieval Europe as a model of kingship, and in particular of the courtly virtue of regal generosity. As early as 1202/03, Walther von der Vogelweide urged the German King Philip of Swabia to be more like Saladin, who believed that a king's hands should have holes to let the gold fall through. By the 1270s, Jans der Enikel was spreading the fictitious but approving story of Saladin's table, which presented him as both pious and wise to religious diversity. In The Divine Comedy (1308–1320), Dante mentions him as one of the virtuous non-Christians in limbo,Inferno, Canto IV, line 129 and he is also depicted favorably in Boccaccio's The Decameron (1438–53).
thumb|Saladinus by Cristofano dell'Altissimo, ante 1568 Saladin was widely renowned in medieval Europe as a model of kingship, and in particular of the courtly virtue of regal generosity. As early as 1202/03, Walther von der Vogelweide urged the German King Philip of Swabia to be more like Saladin, who believed that a king's hands should have holes to let the gold fall through. By the 1270s, Jans der Enikel was spreading the fictitious but approving story of Saladin's table, which presented him as both pious and wise to religious diversity. In The Divine Comedy (1308–1320), Dante mentions him as one of the virtuous non-Christians in limbo,Inferno, Canto IV, line 129 and he is also depicted favorably in Boccaccio's The Decameron (1438–53).