During the presidency of Marshal Ramón Castilla, the Peruvian Navy was considered one of the most powerful in America, but as a consequence of the Pacific War warships were lost in action or sunk by their crews to prevent them from being captured by the enemy.

In 1904, the Peruvian president José Pardo y Barreda authorized the acquisition of the two twin cruisers, which would bear the names Almirante Grau and BAP Coronel Bolognesi, commissioning the English company Vickers Sons Armstrong & Maxim Limited its construction, which was carried out in the shipyards of Barrow in Furness.

Both units still featured many elements of the protected cruiser, but were more robust, better armed and had greater range than the slightly slower contemporary British scouts.

The Grau class turned out to be excellent units, although they periodically had to undergo revision and maintenance work, and for half a century they were the most well known ships of the Peruvian Navy.

[1] At the outbreak of the conflict with Ecuador in 1941, this cruiser, along with the destroyer Almirante Guise, was completing its annual run and careening in the Callao Naval Base, heading towards Paita on 23 July, joining the theater of operations.