Italy is there, and chiefly Italy.

In _De Gustibus_ he contrasts himself with his friend who loves England: Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, (If our loves remain) In an English lane By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.
* * * What I love best in all the world Is a castle, precipice-encurled, In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.
"Look for me, old fellow of mine, if I get out of the grave, in a seaside house in South Italy," and he describes the place and folk he loves, and ends: Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, "Italy." Such lovers old are I and she: So it always was, so shall ever be! It is a poem written out of his very heart.
And then, the scenery?
It is not of our country at all.

It is of many lands, but, above all, it is vividly Italian.

There is no more minute and subtly-felt description of the scenery of a piece of village country between the mountains and the sea, with all its life, than in the poem called _The Englishman in Italy_.

The very title is an outline of Browning's position in this matter.