# Republic of Letters

> English word · Proper noun

## Definitions
1. The intellectual community in the late 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and the Americas, exchanging ideas by circulating handwritten letters.

## Etymology
The first known occurrence of the term in its Latin form (Respublica literaria) is in a letter by Francesco Barbaro to Poggio Bracciolini dated July 6, 1417.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/republic-of-letters