Stiletto be employed along with the dagger as a fighting weapon; a 1536 dueling treatise authored by Achille Marozzo, "Opera Nova", contains sections on dagger and stiletto fighting. By the time of the Renaissance, the term stiletto had come to describe a range of slender thrusting knives closely resembling the French poignard, many with conventional dagger-profile blades and sharpened edges, but always retaining the slim profile and needle-like point. To lighten the weapon, many stilettos were equipped with blades carrying fullers over a portion of their length. The stiletto remained a popular weapon of criminals or political assassins from the 16th
High heel policy In 1770, an act was introduced into the British parliament which would have applied the same penalties as witchcraft to the use of high heels and other cosmetic devices. The pressure under a stiletto heel is greater (per unit of the very small area) than that under the feet of an elephant. Thus, as the very narrow stiletto heel became more widespread in the 1950s, the owners of many types of buildings became concerned about the effects of large numbers of such heels on their floors, especially in historic and high-traffic public buildings. Specifically, there was concern that the heels