The lady shown here is wearing "chopines", or platform shoes.    From Wordnik.com.  [Neatorama] Reference

The height of chopines put today's Louboutins to shame.    From Wordnik.com.  [Leora Tanenbaum: Our Stripper Shoes, Ourselves] Reference

Walking in chopines without someone, even two people, assisting the wearer was impossible.    From Wordnik.com.  [Leora Tanenbaum: How to Wear High-Heeled Shoes and Walk at the Same Time] Reference

These shoes resemble chopines -- extreme platforms favored by courtesans in fifteenth-century Italy.    From Wordnik.com.  [Leora Tanenbaum: How to Wear High-Heeled Shoes and Walk at the Same Time] Reference

Women spent centuries afterwards navigating unwieldy heels like Renaissance-era chopines that sometimes reached heights of 30 inches.    From Wordnik.com.  [Tory Burch: Flats: A Brief History (PHOTOS, POLL)] Reference

But in Spain chopines peeked out from under skirts.    From Wordnik.com.  [Latest News - Yahoo!7 News] Reference

Ell's ont bier bu quatre-cingt pots, cinq, six chopines.    From Wordnik.com.  [Folk Songs of French Canada] Reference

Ell's ont bien bu qurtre-vingt pots, cinq, six chopines.    From Wordnik.com.  [Folk Songs of French Canada] Reference

A pair of Venetian chopines in the exhibit is nearly 20 inches tall.    From Wordnik.com.  [Latest News - Yahoo!7 News] Reference

Height has a long history played out in the extreme in chopines nearly 20 inches high in.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Herald-Mail Online]

The cost of textiles was so high that wearing chopines meant more fabric and therefore higher status.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Herald-Mail Online]

Height has a long history played out in the extreme in chopines nearly 20 inches high in 16th-century Venice.    From Wordnik.com.  [HeraldNet.com Local, Sports, Business and Entertainment News] Reference

Many are still referenced today, from thong sandals of the ancient East to towering chopines of Renaissance Europe.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Herald-Mail Online]

Some have speculated his wedges were inspired by chopines, but few realize he was genuinely interested in women's comfort.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Herald-Mail Online]

"Excessively high chopines in Italy offered the opportunity for more fabric to be displayed but it also offered the opportunity for servants to be displayed," Semmelhack said.    From Wordnik.com.  [Latest News - Yahoo!7 News] Reference

Madame F. stood at the bar rapidly pouring chopines of wine through the pewter funnel, with a wet dishcloth always handy, because every man in the room tried to make love to her.    From Wordnik.com.  [Down and Out in Paris and London] Reference

"Spanish chopines tend to be excessively decorated, very visible, very flashy, much more equivalent to a pair of Manolo Blahniks today than the Italian chopine which was completely concealed and not as decorated," said Semmelhack.    From Wordnik.com.  [Latest News - Yahoo!7 News] Reference

Venetian courtesans teetering on 17th-century wooden chopines had nothing on Ms. Guinness, whose progress to the women's room from the dinner table at one charity dinner last fall kept a room full of guests in bated-breath suspense.    From Wordnik.com.  [NYT > Home Page] Reference

From Karl Lagerfeld's pistol-heeled sandals to John Galliano's surrealistic metallic styles and Alexander McQueen's double decker platforms that recall the clobbering chopines worn by 15th century Venetian whores, designers fell all over themselves to create this season's Most Outrageous Shoe.    From Wordnik.com.  [Gioia Diliberto: Big Shoes To Fill] Reference

SaraphinaMarie 8:38 pm: OK, that I don’t know about, but during that time period- late 17th and 18th century both men and women did wear heels and in the late renaissance the courtesans wore huuuuuuge platforms caled chopines the talled were almost 3 ft!.    From Wordnik.com.  [Transcript: Costumes in Fiction « Coyote Con] Reference

"Women wearing excessively high chopines could not manage to walk without the assistance of at least two servants.    From Wordnik.com.  [Latest News - Yahoo!7 News] Reference

When you go and look at Renaissance painting you see these incredibly tall women but you can't see the chopines, "said Semmelhack.    From Wordnik.com.  [Latest News - Yahoo!7 News] Reference

In fact, the reason why men still offer women their arm today dates back to when women wore chopines and needed that little extra help to be able to go forward. ".    From Wordnik.com.  [Latest News - Yahoo!7 News] Reference

She described 16th-century Italian chopines as "a form of foundation garment, the same way corsets used to be worn in the 19th century or women wear Spanx (underwear) today to reshape their body.    From Wordnik.com.  [Latest News - Yahoo!7 News] Reference

"You don't actually see the chopines themselves.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Herald-Mail Online]