Now, after this statement the reader will be in a position to appreciate the further information that a flask of excellent Chianti, of a quality rarely met with nowadays, was ordinarily sold for one paul.  The flask contained (legal measure) seven troy pounds weight of liquid, or about three bottles.  The same sum purchased a good fowl in the market.  The subscription (abbuonamento) to the Pergola, the principal theatre, came to exactly two crazie and a half for each night of performance.  This price admitted you only to the pit, but as you were perfectly free to enter any box in which there were persons of your acquaintance, the admission in the case of a bachelor, permanently or temporarily such, was all that was necessary to him.  And the price of the boxes was small in proportion.

These boxes were indeed the drawing-rooms in which very much of the social intercourse of the beau monde was carried on.  The performances were not very frequently changed (two operas frequently running through an entire season), and people went four or five times a week to hear, or rather to be present at, the same representation.  And except on first nights or some other such occasion, or during the singing of the well-known tit-bits of any opera, there was an amount of chattering in the house which would have made the hair of a fanatico per la musica stand on end.  There was also an exceedingly comfortable but very parsimoniously-lighted large room, which was a grand flirting place, where people sat very patiently during the somewhat long operation of having their names called aloud, as their carriages arrived, by an official, who knew the names and addresses of us all.  We also knew his mode of adapting the names of foreigners to his Italian organs.  “Hasa” (Florentine for casa) “Tro-lo-pe,” with a long-drawn-out accent on the last vowel, was the absolutely fatal signal for the sudden breaking up of many a pleasant chat.

Florence was also, in those days, an especially economical place for those to whom it was pleasant to enjoy during the whole of the gay season as many balls, concerts, and other entertainments as they could possibly desire, without the necessity, or indeed the possibility, of putting themselves to the expense of giving anything in return.  There was a weekly ball at the Pitti Palace, and another at the Casino dei Nobili, which latter was supported entirely by the Florentine aristocracy.  There were two or three balls at the houses of the foreign ministers, and generally one or two given by two or three wealthy Florentine nobles—­there were a few, but very few such.