conoscente
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: conoscenti
Etymology: From Italian conoscente, modern form of obsolete cognoscente.
Senses: examples: text: I passed two Mornings in looking at the pictures of Sasso Ferrato and Andrea Mantegna, Names which I used to know only in Books: the Works of Guido Reni as the Italians always call him however, give one the real, & true, & unaffected Delight which that Art can afford—and as Goldsmith used to say the way to set up for a Conoscente was to talk a great deal about Pietro Perugino, I assure you that in that Merit I have already made many advances.
ref: 1786–7, James L[owry] Clifford, quoting Hester Thrale, “Travel on the Continent”, in Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs. Thrale), Oxford, Oxon: At the Clarendon Press, published 1941, page 277:
text: Upon asking how he had been taught the art of a conoscente so very suddenly, he assured me that nothing was more easy.
ref: 1814 [1766], Oliv[er] Goldsmith, “From the Vicar of Wakefield”, in Friedrich Theodor Kuͤhne, Englisches Lesebuch zur Erlernung der Umgangssprache mit Hinweisung auf meine englische Sprachlehre, Hannover: bei den Bruͤdern Hahn, page 98:
text: The conoscenti of the island have been greatly perplexed respecting a ruin recently discovered a few feet under ground: […]
ref: 1824, William Henry Smyth, Memoir Descriptive of the Resources, Inhabitants, and Hydrography, of Sicily and Its Islands, Interspersed with Antiquarian and Other Notices, London: John Murray, […], page 262:
text: The first representation of the long-expected ballet of M. Blache, “Les Filets de Vulcain,” has been again put off. It seems to be looked forward to with as much anxiety by the conoscenti of Paris, as the splendid ballet of “La Naissance de Venus” was by those of London.
ref: 1826, The Star Chamber, volume I, part I, London: William Marsh, […], page 66:
text: You affect to be a conoscente in friendship; what an amazing difference it makes, do you not think so, in one man’s feelings towards another, when, other things being equal, he can like his faults, and looks on some degree of them, or at least the dispositions from which they spring, as necessary to make up the simple object of his love?
ref: 1831 July 31, Arthur Henry Hallam, “To Richard Monckton Milnes”, in Jack Kolb, editor, The Letters of Arthur Henry Hallam, Columbus, Oh.: Ohio State University Press, published 1981, →ISBN, page 453:
text: We have no hesitation in saying that the equals of these superb views and compositions have never been displayed to the conoscenti of our new hemisphere; […]
ref: 1834 July 1, “Miscellaneous Notices of the Fine Arts, Literature, Science, the Drama, &c.”, in H[enry] W[illiam] Herbert, editor, The American Monthly Magazine, volume III, number V, New York, N.Y.: […] Monson Bancroft, […], page 354, column 1:
text: “Oh! there are a thousand handsomer persons than Lady Fanny Harcourt; but she is a sweet, blushing, lively girl, quite fresh, quite new. You will not lose your character for a conoscente in professing yourself one of her adorateurs; and doubtless Lady Harcourt will give you every encouragement, notwithstanding all her prudery.”
ref: 1837, Lady Charlotte Bury, The Divorced, volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 52:
text: The conoscenti of Pieve are certain that Titian must have come by Belluno to Pieve in his almost annual visit to his birth-place; but certainly the landscapes in Le Fèvre’s collection do not correspond with any scene in that road, nor with the scenery for many miles round Pieve.
ref: 1870, Charles Lock Eastlake, Contributions to the Literature of the Fine Arts, London: John Murray, […], page 141:
text: Their double victories of the preceding year had caused them to be favourites, so long as the conoscenti of London had only newspaper reports to judge by; […]
ref: 1884, Geo[rge] G[ilbert] T[reherne] Treherne, J[ohn] H[aviland] D[ashwood] Goldie, Record of the University Boat Race, 1829–1883, London: Bickers & Son, […]; Cambridge: Macmillan & Bowes; Oxford: James Thornton, page 44:
text: Was it apathy on the part of the conoscenti of our day that restrained Joseph Gwilt from adequately putting forward the claims of this period of architecture?
ref: 1897 February 4, Lenox Prendergast, “Italian Renaissance Architecture”, in Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, third series, volume IV, number 7, London: […], page 182, column 1:
text: Wotton’s book is, of course, not exactly of the University Extension type. It is written not by a pedagogue for smatterers, but by a conoscente for amateurs, and was published (1624) in the last decade of the author’s life.
ref: 1898 April, The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, volume CLXXXVII, number CCCLXXXIV, London: Longmans, Green, and Co.; New York, N.Y.: Leonard Scott Publication Company, page 417:
text: I was now a conoscente in joinery, and took pleasure in his work.
ref: 1903, Frederic Whitmore, “Settling”, in A Florida Farm, Springfield, Mass.: The Ridgewood Press, page 17:
text: He will carry round a meal to a European, if within coo-ee of his store, in a neat tin can for fifty cents to a dollar Chile; save one all the bother of cooking; and the dishes are fit for a conoscente of the Palais Royal.
ref: 1906, Clement L[indley] Wragge, The Romance of the South Seas, London: Chatto & Windus, pages 260 and 262:
text: I was an eminent, very eximious, and most clearly illuminating writer, such being my proper art and mystery: but, in the matter of cleaning paint off wooden idols with caustic soda, I was (wasn’t it true?) a mere dilettante, whereas he the speaker was a conoscente and the facts remained I was content with my idol and that he was damaged on my account to the extent named.
ref: a. 1914, Frederick Rolfe, “The Venetians”, in Cecil Woolf, editor, The Armed Hands and Other Stories and Pieces, London: Cecil & Amelia Woolf, published 1974, →ISBN, page 114:
text: He may chance to cut a poor figure in the eyes of posterity, for a work which was mere commercial trash to the conoscenti of one generation might possibly become a classic to those of another.
ref: 1961, C[live] S[taples] Lewis, “The Experiment”, in An Experiment in Criticism, Cambridge: At the University Press, page 108:
text: A conoscente of the arts, familiar with antiques since childhood, he has an innate design sense.
ref: 1962, Interior Design, volume 33, page 107:
glosses: Rare form of cognoscente.