age overturned

The movement to free verse at start of the twentieth century, the turning away from regular meters and rhyme schemes, was much like the great shift in painting that occurred in the late 1200s in Italy. Driven by Cimabue and then Giotto, it brought naturalism into painting that too long had relied on the formulas that make early paintings look stilted and unreal to modern eyes.

perfect circle, perfect couplet

If in poetry there was an analog to Vasari’s story about Giotto’s perfect circle, would it be the ability to compose a perfect pentameter couplet as epigram on any given subject? ("Perfetto come la 'O' di Giotto", the Italian meaning: "As perfect as Giotto's circle".)