But the discoveries made on all the other Etruscan sites combined are surpassed, both in number and interest, by those of =Vulci=, a name which eighty years since was scarcely known, but now represents to us one of the most important cities of antiquity. The site is represented by the modern Ponte della Badia, a district of about five miles in circumference round the bridge over the stream Fiora, between the estates of Canino and Montalto. The former estate lay on the left bank, distinguished by a hill named Cucumella. The discovery of painted vases here was brought about purely by accident, about the year 1828. Some oxen in ploughing broke through into an Etruscan tomb containing two broken vases, and thus the local landlord, the Prince of Canino, was led to further researches. In the course of four months he discovered about 2,000 objects in tombs on one small plot of ground, and subsequently other explorers joined in emulating his good fortune. The number of painted vases alone discovered during the year 1829 is reckoned at over 3,000, according to the elaborate report published by Gerhard in the _Annali_,[250] describing and classifying the results. It would not be too much to assert that nine-tenths of the painted vases that have been brought to light in Etruria are from this site. Most of those now in the British Museum are from Camposcala, on the Montalto estate; but many are from the collections formed by Lucien Bonaparte, the Prince of Canino, who continued to excavate intermittently for many years, though the numbers of the finds materially diminished after the first great discovery. In recent years the only important excavations on this site have been those conducted by M. Gsell on the estate of Musignano, at the expense of the proprietor, Prince Torlonia. The object was to exhaust the site by sporadic diggings over the three principal areas of Ponte della Badia, Polledrara, and Cucumella. In all 136 tombs were opened, ranging from the period of “well-tombs” (about the ninth or eighth century B.C.) down to the chamber-tombs of the early fifth century.[251] Besides local pottery of all kinds they contained imported Greek fabrics from the Geometrical ware down to the red-figure period. The later included Corinthian vases of various kinds, a good “Tyrrhenian” amphora, and one of the “affected” B.F. style, a cup signed by Tleson and one in the style of Epiktetos, and Etruscan imitations of B.F. fabrics. M. Tyszkiewicz, the great collector, in his entertaining _Souvenirs_,[252] tells a curious story of the fate of one of the vases found in M. Gsell’s excavations:—