El Greco's vision of the veil of Veronica hangs near a golden crown with 447 emeralds. Just a few steps away, a recumbent sculpture of the crucified Jesus Christ rests before its return to a Spanish hermitage in time for Holy Week.

"Sacred Spain: Art and Belief in the Spanish World" at the Indianapolis Museum of Art is drawing visitors from around the world for an unprecedented exhibition of 71 pieces from 45 lenders _ many of them private _ in Spain, Mexico, Peru and other countries. Madrid's Prado has loaned five works alone.

The free exhibition, which continues through Jan. 3, has thrilled experts and other visitors alike. Harvard Art Museum curator and cultural historian Ivan Gaskell said it inspired him intellectually like no other exhibition he has seen this year.

"I was moved by the totality of the exhibition, by the selection," Gaskell said.

First conceived more than a decade ago and more than three years in development, the exhibit won't travel beyond Indianapolis. Many pieces must return home to convents and parishes in time for Lenten observances that begin Feb. 17.

Others rarely go on public display at all. A private collector loaned the golden Crown of the Andes, originally cast three to four centuries ago to adorn a statue of the Virgin Mary in a Colombian cathedral. It's reputed to be the oldest and largest collection of emeralds in the world.

"The owners of the objects want them back," exhibition curator Ronda Kasl said.

"Sacred Spain" reunites Juan de Valdes Leal's twin paintings "Allegory of Vanity" and "Allegory of Salvation," which had been separated since they were sold at auction in 1938. They're the first works the visitor encounters as Kasl introduces the exhibition with a gallery called "In Defense of Images."

The Roman Catholic Church's 18-year Council of Trent ending in 1563 answered charges of idolatry in artwork by upholding the ability of paintings, sculptures and other works to inspire devotion and to stir the faithful.

"It's not enough for art to be beautiful. It also has to be useful, devotional," Kasl said.

In the case of the twin "Allegory" paintings, Kasl said, "what he was trying to do was to contrast the eternal and the temporal. It talks about the potential for human action, for good or for bad."

Just as Roman Catholics and members of some other Christian denominations believe in Christ's presence in the Eucharist, church doctrine also taught that Jesus, Mary and other saints were present in the relics of their lives and some works of art.