The “Etruscan” theory was first promulgated by Montfaucon, Gori, Caylus, and Passeri, between 1719 and 1752; their arguments being based on the plausible ground that up till that time the vases had been found almost exclusively in Etruria. So the term “Etruscan vase” passed into the languages of Europe, and has survived in spite of a century of refutation. But in 1763 Winckelmann, the father of scientific archaeology, conceived the idea that the spirit and character of the vase-paintings were wholly Greek; and he proposed to call them Italo-Greek or Graeco-Sicilian, indicating Magna Graecia as the true place of their manufacture. This was a step in the right direction, and he was supported later by Lanzi, Millin, Millingen, and others (1791–1813). A further attempt was made to define the particular places of their fabric, and Nola, Locri, and Agrigentum were suggested as the most important centres. Meanwhile, the discoveries of vases in Attica, at Corinth, and elsewhere in Greece, and subsequently the publication of Stackelberg’s work, helped to confirm the position of Winckelmann’s followers. In 1828 came what M. Pottier terms “an objectionable revival of Etruscomania,” with the extensive and marvellously fruitful excavations at Vulci under the direction of the Prince of Canino, Lucien Bonaparte, on whose estates most of the tombs were found. Several thousand vases were the yield of this site, mostly of the best periods of Greek art. This was a great epoch in the history of the study of Greek vases. A flood of fresh light was thrown on the subject by the mass of new material, and a whole new literature arose in consequence. Hitherto vases of the archaic and fine periods had only been known in isolated instances, and the bulk of the existing collections was formed of the florid vases of the Decadence; but now it became possible to fill up the gaps and trace the whole development of the art from the simplest specimens with decorative patterns or figures of animals down to the very last stages of painting.