Hope

Balduccio is one of those artists to whom the merit-and-fault of bravura is unquestionably attributed. This may explain on the one hand the charm, more than justified aesthetically, of figures such as Temperance and Hope (in which the flawless eurhythmy of the compact marble blocks has the assured coherence of a masterpiece), and on the other the tendency to lapse into mannerism, albeit of the highest class.