Their popularity in Spain was so great that the larger part of the nation's cork supplies went towards production of the shoes. Some argue that the style originated in Spain, as there are many extant examples and a great amount of pictorial and written reference going back to the 14th century. Chopines of the Spanish style were more often conical and symmetric, while their Venetian counterparts are much more artistically carved. Turkish sources claim the origin of the ornate Venetian chopines were nalins developed for turkish baths. That is not to say, however, that Spanish chopines were not adorned; on the contrary, there is evidence of jeweling, gilt lettering along the surround (the material covering the cork or wooden base), tooling, and embroidery on Spanish chopines. There are a great many cognates of the word chopine (chapiney, choppins, etc.). However, neither the word chopine nor any word similar to it (chioppino, cioppino, etc.) appears in Florio's dictionaries of either 1598 or 1611. The Italian word, instead, seems to be "zoccolo" (English plural: clogs), which likely comes from the Italian word "zocco", meaning a stump or a block of wood. Florio does, however, use the word "chopinos" in his English definition of zoccoli. See also Geta (footwear) Chopine, volume References External links http://www.aands.org/raisedheels http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~ebernhar/index.shtml http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/08/eustn/hod_1973.114.4a,b.htm Historical footwear Medieval European costume Shoes