Provincial Spanish town challenges cities by showing 120 Renaissance works

Major art exhibition in Alba de Tormes aims to break cultural stranglehold of Madrid and Barcelona

In an elegant but unfinished basilica 100 miles from Madrid as the crow - or in this case the stork - flies, some of the hidden and long-dispersed religious treasures of the Spanish Renaissance have been gathered together for an unlikely and potentially pioneering exhibition.

Although Alba de Tormes has a rich and turbulent history - it is home to both the illustrious House of Alba and the majority of the remains of St Teresa of Avila - the small and picturesque town in Castilla y Leon is not a habitual venue for the kind of art show more commonly staged in Madrid or Barcelona.