Most of these ships were constructed at the beginning of the Austro-Italian ironclad arms race and nearly all of them, with the exception of one of the Italian-built ships, had entered service in time for the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866, and they saw action at the Battle of Lissa in July 1866. There, the Italian fleet was defeated by the smaller Austrian Navy and was sunk. This led to a period of neglect for the "Regia Marina", as naval budgets were reduced and new construction stopped. By the early 1870s, the Italian government began a new program of construction to counter what was now the Austro-Hungarian Navy, which had built several ironclads after Lissa. The naval minister Benedetto Brin was responsible for most of the vessels built as part of this program, beginning with the large and powerful , two ships that carried four massive 100-ton guns. These were followed with the two s, which dispensed with the heavy side armor of earlier designs in favor of very high speed; this has led to them being described as "proto-battlecruisers." As a reaction to these very large ships while Brin was out of power, the navy acquired the three smaller s. The last of the second generation of ironclads, the , were again designed by Brin.