Conversazione


A conversazione is a "social gathering held by learned or art society" for conversation and discussion, especially about the arts, literature, medicine, and science.

Origin

The writer Horace Walpole is credited with the first recorded English use of conversazione in a letter written on 11 November 1739 to Richard West in which he writes, "After the play we were introduced to the assembly, which they call the conversazione".

Historical usage in Britain

In Italy, the term generally refers to a gathering for conversation; and was first used in English to identify the sort of private social gathering more generally known today as an "At Home".
In England, however, it soon came to be far more widely used to denote the gatherings of a far more intellectual character, and was applied in the more specific sense of a scientific, artistic, or literary assembly/soirée, generally held at night.
In its report on the first conversazione ever conducted by the Lambeth Literary Institution, The Gentleman's Magazine noted that,

Knowledge dissemination

According to Yeates :

Other uses

University of Cambridge

The arts-oriented social media website Conversazione.org takes its name from the English meaning.