Conversazione

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". == 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. ::A conversazione like everything else has undergone conspicuous development in these days.Formerly the word was applicable only to a meeting of cognoscenti, who were themselves proficient in some art or science which might be the immediate subject of learned interest.At the present time the materials for discussion are supplied by the proficients, and the general public are invited to provide the talk or the criticism.Moreover a "conversation" of this kind is not limited to a specific subject, but may comprise topics incidental to any branch of science and art whatever. (New Zealand Herald, 17 September 1880.) ==Knowledge dissemination==

According to Yeates (2018): ::In Victorian England, the conversazione was one of the most important educational, cultural, and recreational means through which scientific knowledge was disseminated and explanations of technical innovation were delivered to the general public.Conducted by individuals, institutions, or learned bodies, a (usually mixed amateur/expert, male/female) audience was enlightened by explanations, two-way interactions with participants, experiments, demonstrations, hands-on displays of equipment, and/or the exhibition of specimens (see Alberti, 2003; and Plunkett & Sullivan, 2012).The conversazione’s lectures/explanations delivered knowledge by description, and its experiments, demonstrations, hands-on displays of equipment, and exhibition of specimens delivered knowledge by acquaintance (with the concomitant psychological ownership of the knowledge so-acquired). == Other uses ==

University of Cambridge • The intellectual society at Cambridge University known as the Apostles was founded in 1820 as the Conversazione Society by George Tomlinson. • The Cambridge University Natural History Society continues to call its annual public exhibition a Conversazione. Conversazione.org The arts-orientated social media website Conversazione.org takes its name from the English meaning. ==See also==