It was about this time that the hospitalities of Urbino were called into exercise by the arrival of unusual guests. The sceptre of Persia had been usurped by an adventurer, whom Italian writers have generally named Usum-cassan,[155] and whom the far-seeing policy of Venice had some fifteen years before induced to attack the Asiatic Turks. So useful an ally was conciliated by Calixtus V., as well as by the Maritime Republic; and in 1471 the oriental despot sent an embassy to confirm his relations with these powers, and obtained from them some artillery to be employed against the common enemy. His envoys, after being laden at Venice with those rare and magnificent gifts which their ramified commerce enabled its merchant princes to command, visited several petty courts in their way to Rome and Naples. Their arrival at Urbino was commemorated by the singular compliment of introducing their portraits, along with that of the Count, into an altar-picture executed by Justus of Ghent for the fraternity of Corpus Christi. Of this work we shall have to speak in our thirtieth chapter: it still hangs in the church of Sta. Agata,[*156] and represents the celebration of the Last Supper in the manner of the Romish communion, the Count and the Persian envoys figuring as spectators. In departing, they carried with them a complimentary letter in Latin from Federigo to their master, which mentions that it was written at their request. [Footnote 155: So written by Pietro Bizarro, whose _Historia Rerum Persicarum_ is our chief authority for these circumstances. The letter of Federigo (Urb. Vat. MSS. No. 1198) has Asanbech Kan; it is also written Uzun Hassan Bey. The picture is mentioned in PUNGILEONE, _Elogio di Giovanni Santi_, pp. 11 and 64.] [Footnote *156: The picture is now in the Pinacoteca.]