Etna-class cruiser
series of protected cruisers that were built in the late 1880s for the Regia Marina (the Royal Italian Navy)
The Etna class was a series of protected cruisers that were built in the late 1880s for the Regia Marina (the Royal Italian Navy). The four ships built were slightly enlarged copies of the Elswick Works' design for the protected cruiser Giovanni Bausan. Etna, the lead ship of the class, was the only ship still in service when World War I began, although she served as a stationary headquarters ship for the Navy Commander-in-Chief in Taranto for the duration of the war. The three later ships all participated in putting down the Boxer Rebellion as part of the Eight-Nation Alliance. The three were struck from the Navy List before 1912, but Etna was not sold for scrap until 1921.
Design and description
The design of the Etna-class protected cruisers was based on that of Sir W G Armstrong Mitchell & Co.'s Elswick Works' earlier Giovanni Bausan, which was the first modern protected cruiser constructed for the Italian Navy. She proved successful enough that the Italians negotiated for a license to build copies in Italian shipyards. George Rendel and Carlo Vigna designed the ships. The first three ships varied somewhat in their displacement and engine power, and the last ship, Ettore Fieramosca, was slightly longer than the others.
The Etna-class ships measured 283 feet 6 inches (86.4 m) between perpendiculars, with a beam of 42 feet 6 inches (13.0 m).
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