There are a good few text indications that a common assumption in 15th century Italy was that there would be more men dancing than women (though there are also descriptions of groups of women dancing together).
Today, I decided to skim the choreographies with different numbers of men and women, or odd numbers of dancers but unspecified gender, and look at the gender balance. My current impression (before checking) is that there are often more men called for than women; but that it varies. However, there are often more women than men in my dance classes, so we dance many things with the genders swapped: maybe men always outnumbered women?
There are 44 dances on my list.
Breaking it down further, 9 of those dances (89%) are for 3 people, being:
The remaining 5 dances are for various numbers of people. Men definitely out number women in four. In Raia, which is danced by two or three people, one woman is mentioned but the gender of the other dancer(s) is left unspecified.
Dance | Type |
Dances for three - two men and one woman (25) | 7 bassadanze, 12 balli, 5 balletti, 1 genre-unspecified |
Ays | bassadanza |
Corona Gentile | bassadanza |
Damnes | bassadanza |
Diamante | bassadanza |
Duchessa | bassadanza |
Gioia | bassadanza |
Meschina | bassadanza |
Belfiore | ballo |
Belreguardo novo | ballo |
Danza di Re | ballo |
Duchesco | ballo |
Gioioso in tre | ballo |
Giove | ballo |
Humana | ballo |
Ingrata | ballo |
Iupiter | ballo |
Lioncello novo | ballo |
Moza di Bischare | ballo |
Se no dormi dona alscholtta | ballo |
Bialre di Chastiglia | balletto |
La Fortuna | balletto |
La Graziosa | balletto |
Rossina | balletto |
Vita di Cholino | balletto |
Mastri di Tromboni | unspecified genre |
Dances for three: two women and one man (5) | 2 bassadanze, 3 balli |
Febus | bassadanza |
Pellegrina | bassadanza |
Santomera | ballo |
Spero | ballo |
Voltati in ca Rosina | ballo |
Dances for three: unspecified genders (9) | 5 bassadanze, 4 balli |
Caterva | bassadanza |
La Crudele | bassadanza |
Mignotta in tre | bassadanza |
Nobile | bassadanza |
Venus | bassadanza |
Amoroso tre | ballo |
Angiola | ballo |
Petit Rinense | ballo |
Principessa tre | balllo |
Other dances (5) | 4 balli, 1 balletto |
Mercantia (for 4: a male-female couple and two extra men: 1 woman and 3 men) | ballo |
Sobria (for 6: a male-female couple and four extra men: 1 woman and 5 men) | ballo |
Tesara (for 10: four male-female couples and two extra men: 4 women and 6 men) | ballo |
Verceppe (for 5: 2 women and 3 men) | ballo |
Raia (for 2 or 3: 1 woman and 2 others of unspecified gender) | balletto |
[This table comes with a thankyou to William A. Smith, for making this so easy to do. I love a good concordance!]