Dictionary

calcagnetti en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (historical, plural, plural-normally, qualifier:footwear) A type of Venetian platform shoe or chopine with an extremely tall wedge sole, popular among noblewomen.
   • So as not to have to wade through the brackish water of the calli and the narrow alleyways, Venetian women at the end of the 17th century were known to walk on calcagnetti, high-heeled shoes like stilts from the heights of which (more than 40 centimeters) they could look down safely upon the muck. 2003, Conzett & Huber (publisher), Du, numbers 733-737, page 7:
   • The careful Venetian leather worker, however, could produce supple skins that would be transformed into a wide range of luxury goods including chopines (those vertiginous Venetian platform shoes also known as calcagnetti, pianelle and zoccole) as well as bejewelled belts, painted quivers, gilded wallpapers and perfumed gloves. 2019, Maria H. Loh, Titian's Touch, Art, Magic and Philosophy, page 158:
   • It represents a handsome Venetian lady who appears very tall because, beneath her wide black skirt, she is certainly wearing the wooden shoes called calcagnetti which, according to the fashion of the time, were sometimes as much as 40 cm. or more in height. 1968, Savile Publishing Company (publisher), The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, volumes 71-72, page 64:
   • The use of high pattens (calcagnini or calcagnetti) still persisted during the seventeenth century, and we do not know for certain when this strange and inconvenient habit went out. 1908, Pompeo Molmenti, Venice: The Decadence, page 224:
   • The shoes were characterized by thick soles made of cork or wood, which in Venice could be up to twenty inches tall, as in the case of the stilt-like clogs called calcagnetti, still visible today in the city's Correr Museum. 2005, University of Toronto, Graduate English Association, Descant, number 129, page 70:

Forms

Relateds

zoccolo · chopine