The first signs of an intelligent interest in these plays appeared almost simultaneously at the very beginning of the fourteenth century in the commentary of the English Dominican, Nicholas Treveth, and in the study of the circle gathered about Lovato di Lovati at Padua. One of this school, Albertino Mussato, about 1314, wrote his "Eccerinis" on the fate of the Paduan tyrant, Ezzelino, of the preceding century. This first of the Latin tragedies of modern times aroused the admiration of scholars, and was followed by many other neo-Latin imitations of Seneca. These, while keeping to the Senecan form, often went beyond the stories of classical mythology and chose their subjects from the Bible or from ancient or modern history. Meanwhile neo-Latin comedy had had a beginning and was largely stimulated by the discovery, in 1427, of twelve hitherto unknown comedies of Plautus. All these neo-Latin plays were read and not acted; and the actual acting, either of the classical plays or their humanistic imitations, was not established until the close of the fifteenth century. The knowledge of the classical drama spread after a time across the Alps, and Terentian comedy in particular exercised a wide influence upon the drama. Of especial interest in relation to tragedy is the new school of neo-Latin comedy which arose about 1530 in Holland and spread over Germany and into France. It applied Terentian style and structure to many of the stories in the Old Testament and to the parable of the prodigal son. To its original purpose of substituting for Terentian immorality themes edifying for youth, it soon added a Protestant tone, and in Kirchmayer's "Pammachius" (1538) entered the field of violent religious controversy. As the number of these plays rapidly increased, there resulted a secularization of treatment and the admission of Senecan as well as Terentian influence. The stories of Judith, Susannah, Goliath, and others gave opportunities for recourse to Senecan imitation; and in the "Jephthes" and "Baptistes," which about 1540 George Buchanan wrote at Bordeaux for his students to act, we have the first tragedies north of the Alps written in distinctly classical form,--a form, it should be said, derived from his study and translation of Euripides as well as from Seneca.