Conversazione

A conversazione is a "social gathering [predominantly] held by [a] learned or art society"[2] for conversation and discussion, especially about the arts, literature, medicine, and science.

[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] The writer Horace Walpole is credited with the first recorded English use of conversazione in a letter written (from Italy) on 11 November 1739 to Richard West (1716–1742) in which he writes, "After the play we were introduced to the assembly, which they [viz., the Italians] call the conversazione".

[11][12] 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".

[13] 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,[14] generally held at night.

[15][16][17] In its report on the first conversazione ever conducted by the Lambeth Literary Institution (on 22 June 1836), The Gentleman's Magazine noted that, According to Yeates (2018): The arts-oriented social media website Conversazione.org takes its name from the English meaning.