Firdausi's epic poem, the Shahnama, is a celebration of Iran's ancient tradition of kingship. The Eckstein Shahnama is a lavishly illuminated and illustrated Ottoman copy of Firdausi's work, completed in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Its thirty-two illustrations, many of which draw on the Persian tradition of manuscript illustration, are a remarkable witness to the spread of Iranian culture to the Ottoman Empire in the Period. This study  of the manuscript also elucidates how the Ottomans succeeded in imbuing Iranian culture models with their own distinctly Ottoman flavour.