The neighbourhood of the Italians exercised in very early times a happy influence on the literature of the Dalmatians. The small republic of Ragusa, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was at the zenith of its splendour and welfare. Celebrated Italians were teachers in her schools; and the persecuted Greeks, Lascaris, Demetrius Chalcondylas, Emanuel Marulus, and several others, celebrated over all Europe for their learning, found an asylum within her walls. Thus the treasures of the classics and of the Italian middle ages became familiar to the noble youths of Ragusa, until, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, poetry began to appear in a national dress. The Italian influence remained strikingly visible. Blasius Darxich, Sigismund Menze, Mauro Vetranich, and Stephen Gozze (ob. 1576), are mentioned as the first Dalmatian poets. The latter wrote a comic epic, the _Dervishiade_, which met with great success. A poem of the same kind is _Jegyupka_, the Gipsy, by Andreas Giubronavich, printed at Venice 1559. Dominic Zlatarich (ob. 1608) translated Tasso and the Electra of Sophocles, and was himself a lyric poet. The annals of this period, towards the end of the sixteenth century, report likewise the name of a lady, Svietana Zuzerich, as an Illyrian poetess; called also Floria Zuzzeri, as an Italian poetess; for she wrote with success in both languages. Several other ladies followed the example, as Lucrezia Bogashinovich, Katharina Pozzo di Sorgo, etc. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Ragusa enjoyed peace, and a degree of wealth and prosperity most favourable to high attainments in science and literature. The first Slavic theatre was founded here, and the dramatic art seems to have been considered so honourable, that even noblemen acted publicly; as is related of Junius Palmota, who died in 1657. The noble names of Palmota or Palmotich, Gondola or Gondolich, for they appear alternately both in the Slavic and Italian form, are very frequent in Ragusian literature. Junius Palmota wrote tragedies; selecting his subjects principally from Slavic history. But his most esteemed production is a Slavic version of a great Latin epic on Christ, by M.H. Vita, which may be considered as a kind of precursor to Klopstock's Messiah. John Gondola, a dramatic writer before him, translated Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered; and left many lyrical poems.