The cost of fencing lessons.

Finally a document to satisfy my inner time traveler.

Reading about historical fencing is fun. Hitting things with swords is fun. But how much would it cost to get fencing lessons from Filippo Dardi?

A guy named Brian Stokes apparently has found a document dated from 1443 in which the city of Bologna is giving Dardi permission to open a school. Link. All around it's a very interesting document since it outlines business expectations, reasonable course timelines among other things. For one thing, it appears that Dardi is being given a grant of 200 lire per year to subsidize his lessons. Dardi agrees, although he does say that he will only accept 20 students per class.

Of interest to fellow time travelers there is a complete list outlining duration of courses and cost. Gaurenwolf has helpfully worked out the approximate cost of classes based on the price of silver. The result is surprisingly reasonable. For example, for the long sword the cost works out to $1887.60 for a 5 month course, or around $17 for a 2 hour lesson. At 2 hours a day, 5 days a week that's over 130 hours of instruction.

One thing that immediately jumped out to me was how expensive dagger was, with a two month course costing 6 lire, only 4 lire short of a 5 month long sword class. The reasoning behind the pricing isn't directly explored in the text. I have to wonder if this is demand based, or prehaps difficulty based.

While the dagger isn't mentioned, the two handed sword, the buckler, and 'other plays' are seen as 'useful to the young men of Bologna, for their own defence and for that of the public sphere.' I would like to investigate as to what the 'public sphere' is in this case. I'm not familiar enough with non-judicial or judicial dueling at this time to be able to say if these skills were being used in dueling, or if it was more likely that this was being used martially. Whatever the use, it was important enough to warrant Bologna subsidizing the class.