University of Osuna functioned from 1548 until 1824. The building of the former university is significant both architecturally and for its long history as a seat of the university. Its construction was ordered by Don Juan Téllez Girón, founder of the university. The First Duke of Osuna was responsible for numerous buildings in his domain, nearly all of a religious character. The university building is, therefore, particularly notable as an essentially civil building devoted to education.
The buildings erected under the patronage of the First Duke of Osuna are important primarily because of the adoption and diffusion of new stylistic currents and ideas from the Italian architecture of the time. The Renaissance aspects of the buildings are patent, as is the relation to the ideology of humanism in a building expressly created as a center for modern education.
The surviving university building testifies to the Renaissance aesthetics, providing one of the most singular and defining architectural examples of Osuna's past greatness.
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.