The Deodoro class were two French-designed and -built coastal defense battleships built for the Brazilian Navy in the late 1890s.

Upon their completion, Scientific American called them small vessels of a type "built only for second-rate naval powers," but also noted that it was a "wonder ... so much armor and armament could be carried" on a ship of its size.

[1] They served the Brazilian Navy as its only modern armored warships until the arrival of two dreadnoughts in 1910.

[2] The ships had a low freeboard and long superstructures with single-gun main turrets arranged at each end.

Their secondary batteries were also mounted at each end of the superstructure, albeit in casemates in each corner.