The City of Natchez will greet three special guests this weekend with a Sunday reception honoring two Spanish museum curators and the director of a state cultural organization.

Jack Kyle, executive director of the Mississippi Commission for International Cultural Exchange; Leticia Ruiz, curator of Spain’s Museo del Prado; and Dr. Javier Morales, curator of the Patrimonio Nacional, will be at a 6 p.m. reception at Magnolia Hall.

Laura Godfrey, public relations director for the Natchez Convention and Visitors Bureau, said hospitality industry leaders are invited to attend the reception.

Kyle is working with Ruiz and Morales to bring &uot;The Majesty of Spain&uot; exhibition to Jackson next year. The exhibit, scheduled for run from March 1, 2001, to Sept. 3, will be the largest exhibition ever presented by Spain in the U.S. It will be shown at the Mississippi Arts Pavilion.

Because of Natchez’s Spanish history, city tourism officials hope to lure Jackson’s exhibit visitors to Natchez.

&uot;We really want to make Natchez a spinoff city because of our heritage,&uot; Godfrey said.

Two years ago, the city celebrated the bicentennial of Spain’s ceding control of Natchez to the United States, known as the official start of the demarcation of the boundary between Spanish Florida and the U.S.

The exhibit will have 325 objects and works of art from the royal palaces of Spain, paintings and sculpture from the Prado Museum and room re-creations from Spain’s royal palaces.

Most of the objects have never been shown in North America.