Located in the Normandy countryside, near from the Mont Saint-Michel, the Abbey of Notre Dame of Hambye was founded around 1145 by William Painel, Lord of Hambye, and Algare, bishop of Coutances. The monastery was established by a group of Benedictine monks from Tiron (Perche region in south-east of Basse-Normandie). Fueled by an ideal of rigor and austerity close to that of Cistercians, Benedictine monks built a sober and elegant abbey, typical of early Gothic period. The construction took place in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. The religious community reached its apogee in the 13th century and then, after a long decline over the following centuries, disappeared in the 1780s.
Like all French abbeys, it became national property at the beginning of the Revolution. Eventually, the abbey was sold in 1790. The owners transformed or destroyed buildings and scattered the furnishings. Having belonged to the abbey for three centuries (16th-18th centuries), the altarpiece was also sold. The convent buildings became farm buildings. The abbey church was used as a quarry from 1810, and was gradually dismantled.
References:The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is a stone theatre structure located on the southwest slope of the Acropolis of Athens. It was built in 161 AD by the Athenian magnate Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife, Aspasia Annia Regilla. It was originally a steep-sloped theater with a three-story stone front wall and a wooden roof made of expensive cedar of Lebanon timber. It was used as a venue for music concerts with a capacity of 5,000. It lasted intact until it was destroyed and left in ruins by the Heruli in 267 AD.
The audience stands and the orchestra (stage) were restored using Pentelic marble in the 1950s. Since then it has been the main venue of the Athens Festival, which runs from May through October each year, featuring a variety of acclaimed Greek as well as International performances.