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
Montane guinea pig Montane guinea pig The montane guinea pig, "Cavia tschudii", a type of rodent, is a guinea pig species from the Andes in South America. The montane guinea pig is the likely ancestor of "Cavia porcellus", the cavy or domestic guinea pig. Peruvian wild guinea pigs were first described by E. T. Bennett in 1835, who termed them "Cavia cutleri". Johann Jakob von Tschudi, in an 1845 publication, used the term "Cavia cutleri" to refer to what are now considered two separate entities - the first, Bennett's "Cavia cutleri", which was later (by Oldfield Thomas in 1917) identified as probably a