Chopine Chopine A chopine is a type of women's platform shoe that was popular in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Chopines were originally used as a patten, clog, or overshoe to protect the shoes and dress from mud and street soil. Chopines were popularly worn in Venice by both courtesans and patrician women from ca. 1400–1700. Besides their practical uses, the height of the chopine became a symbolic reference to the cultural and social standing of the wearer; the higher the chopine, the higher the status of the wearer. High chopines allowed a woman to tower over others. During the
War of the Bucket the Modenese took a bucket from a well just outside a city gate as a trophy. 17th-century Italian poet Alessandro Tassoni composed the mock-heroic epic "La secchia rapita" on the events of the War of the Bucket. An ancient wooden bucket is kept in the Torre della Ghirlandina in Modena to this day. It is said to be the bucket taken from Bologna before the battle, or afterward as a trophy. After the war, Ghibelline power had risen up once again, but the wars were not over. In 1447, the Ghibellines encountered failures when the Ambrosian Republic was created and