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Original specifications: - Training vessel, L/B/D 82.1m * 15.5m * 6.7m, Hull: Steel, Complement: 450, Built: Royal Shipyard, Castellamare di Stabia, Italy; 1930.

In the late 1920s, the Italian navy began construction of two ships for training their officer cadets at Sea, Cristoforo Colombo and Amerigo Vespucci. The design chosen was that of a seventy-four-gun frigate, though they had steel hulls and carried double top gallants, auxiliary power, and other modern devices.

Amerigo Vespucci was named for the Florentine explorer for whom the sixteenth century German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller, named the newly discovered land masses to the West.

Her full lines are in sharp contrast to the majority of sail-training vessels. A letter from a Norwegian submarine commander having encountered the two sister ships reads as follows:

“On breaking surface, I took a quick look around and got a shock. I had gone down in the 20th century and come up again in the 18th century, for there stood in front of me, two majestic men-of –war, under a press of canvas and sailing proudly.