This article will focus on a Persian manuscript of Central Asian origin of exceptional literary, historical, and artistic importance. It is a selection of poetry, which was composed in Herat and written in 1531–32 in Bukhara and now belongs to King's College, Cambridge (King's Pote 186). It is the second part of my research on this manuscript, and I shall concentrate mainly on its textual and artistic peculiarities. The first part, which was published recently, was dedicated to its provenance as well as its historical and religious setting.1 The studies also reflect the political, social, and cultural processes in a contemporary turbulent world. Among these are the Shaybanid and Safavid conquests of sixteenth-century Central Asia, Shah Jahan's literary preferences, the colonial ambitions of the former Cambridge graduate Ephraim Pote, East India Company agent-turned-scholar Antoine Polier, and expertise of the crème de la crème of Victorian Cambridge academia.
