Abstract : In the summer of 1459, delegations from all Italian and many other European powers arrived in Mantua where Pope Pius II’s congress on a crusade against the Turks was to be held. The congress began its work on 26 September. One of the few princes not represented in Mantua then, Duke Louis I of Savoy, dispatched his ambassadors after that event. They were received by the pope with a correct, but rather brief and cool oration.