During the nineteenth century, the history of art began to assume a more important place as a distinct branch of general history. The century was well advanced, however, when the first complete work in this subject appeared--Kugler’s _Handbook of the History of Art_. It was not translated from the German until 1855, when the part referring to Italy was published in an English translation by Sir Charles Eastlake. (Many of Browning’s best art poems were published in 1855, and some of them previous to that time.) Taking this work as the beginning of modern treatment of art history, and noting the fact that the next work of importance referring to Italian art alone and treating it from the historical standpoint was published by Crowe and Cavalcaselle in 1876, it is evident that nothing like the present general knowledge of it could have existed in England in Browning’s time. Certainly this makes his treatment of art history, particularly the facility with which he presents the tendencies of different periods, more remarkable than similar attainment would be in more recent times. Even with the added knowledge resulting from recent investigations, no other writer has been able to produce such perfect poems of the musician or the painter as Browning has built about Fra Lippo Lippi, or the Italian by adoption, Abt Vogler.[166] VIII. NON-ENGLISH THEMES AND SETTINGS IN GENERAL.--The Italian element is only one result, though a very significant result, of a general tendency on the part of Browning to choose poetic subjects of non-English character. From the Orient,[167] from Greece,[168] from France,[169] from any region, in fact, which pleased his fancy, however remote, he levied his contributions. With this general non-English tendency, it is not surprising that in Italy, where he spent so much time, he found material for every sort of poem from _Fra Lippo Lippi_ to _Luria_ and _The Ring and the Book_, and that he should shape his material into poems with much of the atmosphere of Italy, the home of the arts. IX. A QUANTITATIVE STATEMENT.--As a matter of fact, the supposition that Browning’s poetry embodies a large amount of Italian art reference is correct. Forty-nine poems out of two hundred and twenty-two, or more than one-fifth of the entire number, have some mention of one or more of the arts or artists of Italy, while other poems deal with the arts of other nations or with a general comparison of the arts. CHAPTER II ITALIAN SCULPTURE IN THE POEMS OF BROWNING.