Saladin

Saladin emerges in the Decameron as both a powerful ruler and a discerning judge of character: he can devise a trap, recognize a clever escape from it, and turn a potential adversary into a valued friend. His encounters with Melchizedek and Messer Torello d'Istria trace two forms of intelligence—one that protects itself through parable, and another that answers generosity with generosity—and make the exercise of power a test of how Saladin treats those who cannot simply be commanded.

A ruler in need

Saladin’s story with Melchizedek begins with a paradox of power. Though a formidable prince, celebrated for his valor and victories over both Saracen and Christian kings, he has spent his treasure in warfare and extraordinary acts of munificence. An urgent need for money leaves him looking to Melchizedek, a wealthy Jewish lender in Alexandria. Saladin believes Melchizedek can supply the sum, but also knows that the lender is too miserly to do so willingly. He is reluctant to take the money by force, and instead seeks a pretext that might compel compliance while appearing reasonable.

He summons Melchizedek, seats him familiarly, and presents a question about which of the Jewish, Saracen, and Christian laws is true. The question is a snare: an answer favoring one faith could give Saladin grounds for a quarrel. Melchizedek recognizes the danger and responds with a story about a precious ring that passes through generations as a sign of inheritance. A father who loves three sons equally has three rings made so alike that no one can identify the original; when each son claims the inheritance, the dispute remains unresolved. Melchizedek applies the parable to the three religions, each of whose adherents claims the true inheritance from God, while the question of which possesses it remains pending.

Saladin sees that Melchizedek has escaped the trap without condemning any of the three laws. Rather than punish him or renew the coercive test, Saladin discloses his actual need and asks whether Melchizedek will help. Melchizedek freely lends him the required money. Saladin repays him in full, gives him very great gifts, and keeps him as a friend in an honored position near his person. The encounter turns a risky inquiry into a relationship founded on mutual respect: Melchizedek’s answer preserves his freedom, while Saladin’s response makes clear that intelligence earns more than mere safety.

The disguised traveler

In another tale, Saladin’s public responsibilities take him beyond his court. Learning that the Christians are preparing a general crusade to recover the Holy Land, he decides to inspect their preparations in person so he can better provide for his own defenses. He arranges affairs in Egypt, then sets out on what appears to be a pilgrimage, disguised as a merchant. Only two senior officers and three servants accompany him. The disguise lets him travel through Christian countries as an observer rather than approach their preparations as a declared ruler.

On the road from Milan to Pavia, Saladin and his small company meet Messer Torello d'Istria, a gentleman of Pavia traveling with servants, dogs, and falcons toward his country seat on the Tesino. Saladin asks whether they can reach Pavia before its gates close and, when told they cannot, asks where strangers might lodge. Messer Torello sends a servant ahead to direct them to a suitable place and secretly instructs him, while he himself rides to his estate to prepare supper and tables in the garden.

The next day, Messer Torello’s wife responds to her husband’s arrangements by preparing a magnificent banquet in Pavia. She summons friends and servants, invites leading townspeople by torchlight, and lays out fine cloths, silks, and furs. Messer Torello then guides Saladin and his companions to his own house rather than the inn they had requested. Their host’s welcome thus becomes more than a convenient night’s lodging: he and his household honor strangers whose rank they do not know, and do so without first demanding recognition or reward.

Recognition and repayment

Saladin and Messer Torello do not recognize one another when their circumstances later change. Messer Torello joins the crusade and is captured; Saladin, who has encountered him only as the Christian host, keeps him in his service as a falconer. The tale’s reversal places the former guest under the authority of the man he once received. Saladin does not at first know that the falconer is his host, and Messer Torello’s thoughts remain fixed on Pavia and the possibility of escape.

Recognition comes through a small, remembered gesture. While they are discussing hawks, Messer Torello smiles and moves his mouth in a way Saladin recalls from his visit to Pavia. Saladin studies him and asks about his origins. Messer Torello identifies himself only as a poor Lombard from Pavia. To test his suspicion, Saladin takes him to a chamber where the clothes given to him by Messer Torello’s wife are laid out. Messer Torello recognizes two gowns as resembling garments once given to three merchants who had visited his house, but cannot imagine that these are the same clothes. Saladin then reveals that he was one of those guests and names Messer Torello as his host.

The recognition transforms captivity into honor. Saladin tells Messer Torello to regard himself as master, clothes him in royal apparel, and presents him to his chief barons with an order that they honor him as they would Saladin himself. The two men’s roles have changed—host and guest, captor and captive—but Saladin treats the earlier hospitality as a debt still binding. His conduct makes recognition not simply a discovery of identity but the point at which private gratitude becomes public esteem.

Friendship against separation

Messer Torello’s return to Pavia becomes urgent when he believes his wife’s period of waiting is about to end. The mistaken report that he has died has brought her months of grief, and her family has pressed her to marry again. She has agreed only on condition that she need not go to her new husband until the term she had promised Messer Torello has elapsed. Messer Torello hears that the Genoese ambassadors’ ship has been lost with all aboard and concludes that his letter announcing his survival could not have reached Pavia. Believing his wife must therefore have remarried, he loses his appetite and sleep, takes to his bed, and resolves to die.

Saladin loves him too greatly to leave this distress unanswered. Once he learns the cause, he reproaches Messer Torello for not confiding in him sooner, then promises to get him to Pavia by the appointed term. Messer Torello trusts him and urges him to act, since the next day is the last day on which he expects his wife to remain free. Saladin’s response is personal as well as practical: he acknowledges the worth of Messer Torello’s wife and says that, had he known sooner of his friend’s need, he would have arranged a return surrounded by the honor and company Messer Torello deserved.

For the journey, Saladin orders a rich bed prepared in a great hall of his palace. Its velvet and cloth-of-gold mattresses, pearl- and jewel-worked coverlet, and matching pillows make the bed an extravagant vehicle for a departure that cannot be accompanied. He has Messer Torello dressed in magnificent Saracen clothing and a long turban-cloth. When the hour comes, Saladin sits beside him, grieving that he cannot travel with him or send an escort, and asks him to remember their friendship, visit if possible, and write whenever he can. A magician is to transport the sleeping Messer Torello to Pavia in a single night; the detailed preparations give the miraculous passage a material form, while Saladin’s farewell makes its emotional cost explicit.

Power and generosity

The two encounters reveal different dimensions of Saladin’s authority. With Melchizedek, he begins by using his power to create a dangerous question, but accepts the answer’s ingenuity and chooses repayment and friendship over coercion. With Messer Torello, he discovers that an apparently obscure falconer is the man whose hospitality he once received, then raises him to royal honor and mobilizes a magical means of reunion when delay threatens his friend’s marriage. In both episodes, Saladin’s response to another person’s intelligence or generosity is itself decisive: he does not merely recognize merit but answers it through action.

His portrayal also crosses religious and political divisions without making them disappear. The question of religious truth remains unresolved in Melchizedek’s parable, while Saladin’s respect for the Jew is demonstrated in the concrete terms of a freely given loan, full repayment, gifts, and enduring favor. In the later tale, a Christian traveler and a Muslim ruler meet first through hospitality and later through captivity, yet personal loyalty survives the change in their positions. Saladin’s generosity is therefore not an abstract trait: it determines how power is exercised, turning a threatened loan into friendship and a captive’s distress into a carefully prepared homecoming.