Sentence:  Being somewhat delicate in health , at the age of sixteen he was sent to Southern Europe , for which he at once developed a passion , so that he spent nearly all of the following ten years abroad , at first in <WSD>Italy</WSD> , then in Greece , Egypt , Asia Minor , and Palestine . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a republic in southern Europe on the Italian Peninsula; was the core of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire between the 4th century BC and the 5th century AD