page_title: Italian ironclad Regina Maria Pia
section_title: Later career
hierarchical_section_title: Italian ironclad Regina Maria Pia / Service history / Later career
caption_attribution_description: English: &#160;Italy, Regia Marina. The Italian battleship Italia taken the day of the launch at Cantiere navale di Castellammare di Stabia on September 29, 1880.
context_page_description: Regina Maria Pia was the lead ship of the Regina Maria Pia class of ironclad warships built in French shipyards for the Italian Regia Marina in the 1860s. She and her three sister ships were broadside ironclads, mounting a battery of four 8-inch and twenty-two 164 mm guns on the broadside. Regina Maria Pia was laid down in July 1862, was launched in April 1863, and was completed in April 1864.
  Regina Maria Pia took part in the Battle of Lissa during the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866. She attacked the unarmored frigates in the Austrian second division, and damaged two vessels. Her career was limited after the war, owing to the emergence of more modern ironclads and a severe reduction in the Italian naval budget following their defeat at Lissa. She was rebuilt as a central battery ship some time after Lissa, and was modernized again in the late 1880s. Regina Maria Pia was eventually broken up for scrap in 1904.
context_section_description: For the rest of her long career, Regina Maria Pia served in a variety of roles, both in the main fleet and in Italy's colonial empire. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Italian naval budget was drastically reduced; so significant were the cuts that the fleet had great difficulty in mobilizing its ironclad squadron to attack the port of Civitavecchia in September 1870, as part of the wars of Italian unification. Instead, the ships were laid up and the sailors conscripted to man them were sent home. Some time after 1866, the ship was rebuilt as a central battery ship, with most of her guns located in a central, armored casemate. Two other guns were placed in the bow as chase guns, with a third mounted as a stern chaser. At this time, her armament was also revised, to two 220 mm (8.7 in) guns in the bow and nine 8 in guns, four on each broadside and the last in the stern.
  She was part of the international fleet that assembled at Tessaloniki during the Salonika Incident in May 1876 in response to the murder of the French and German consuls in the city. 
  Regina Maria Pia took part in the launching ceremony for the ironclad Italia on 29 September 1880; also present were the Italian ironclad Principe Amedeo and King Umberto I aboard his yacht, and the British ironclads HMS Monarch (Captain George Tryon) and Thunderer of the Mediterranean Fleet. Between 1888 and 1890, the ship had her barque rig replaced with military masts. By this time, she had been rearmed with eight 6 in (150 mm) guns in the casemate and several smaller guns for close-range defense against torpedo boats. These included five 4.7 in (120 mm) guns, four 57 mm (2.2 in) guns, and eight 37 mm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolver cannon. She also received three torpedo tubes. The ship was stricken from the naval register in 1904 and subsequently broken up for scrap.
caption: Regina Maria Pia (right background) at the launch for the ironclad Italia in 1880. The other ships present are the Italian Principe Amedeo (behind Regina Maria Pia) and the British HMS Monarch and Thunderer (center background)
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