Charlemagne
& Arthur (Castle of La Manta, Saluzzo)
This castle houses a fourteenth-century fresco depicting all of the 'nine worthies'—the
nine great heroes in the later medieval chivalric imagination. The nine worthies
included three ancient Jews (Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabbeus); three pagans
(Hector, Alexander, and Julius Caesar) and three Christians (Arthur, Charlemagne,
and Godfrey of Bouillon). Arthur is on the left; Charlemagne on the right, bearing
the dimidiated arms of the Holy Roman Empire and France.