The first major UK exhibition to explore the exceptional talents of the Renaissance master Donatello, arguably the greatest sculptor of all time.

Six large scale, lightweight architectural volumes divide the V&A’s Sainsbury gallery into a series of open piazza spaces inspired by the city vernacular of Florence. Visitors are encouraged to explore a mix of ‘exterior’ and semi transparent ‘interior’ spaces that frame a variety of objects and narratives.

A restrained, uniform and textured colour palette takes inspiration from Brunelleschi’s use of the blue-grey Pietra Serena sandstone used across Florence. Renaissance architectural details and motifs evoke a sense of time and place and abstracted solid plinths and wall geometries with stone masonry detailing are sympathetic to the objects, serving to enhance them. The range of works are arranged as per their original architectural settings, whether a private room, chapel, cathedral altar or outside, adjacent to or on a building.