Roma, named after two previous ships and the city of Rome,[N 1] was the third Littorio-class battleship of Italy's Regia Marina (Royal Navy).

As Roma was laid down almost four years after the first two ships of the class, some small improvements were made to the design, including additional freeboard added to the bow.

Roma was commissioned into the Regia Marina on 14 June 1942, but a severe fuel shortage in Italy at that time prevented her from being deployed; instead, along with her sister ships Vittorio Veneto and Littorio, she was used to bolster the anti-aircraft defenses of various Italian cities.

After repairs in Genoa through all of July and part of August, Roma was deployed as the flagship of Admiral Carlo Bergamini in a large battle group that eventually comprised the three Littorios, eight cruisers and eight destroyers.

In December 1935, Admiral Domenico Cavagnari proposed to Mussolini that, among other things, two more battleships of the Littorio class be built to attempt to counter a possible Franco-British alliance—if the two countries combined forces, they would easily outnumber the Italian fleet.

Her bow was noticeably redesigned to give Roma additional freeboard; partway into construction, it was modified on the basis of experience with Vittorio Veneto so that it had had a finer end at the waterline.

She was designed with a standard displacement of 40,992 long tons (41,650 t), a figure that like other Italian warships of the period would have violated the 35,000-long-ton (36,000 t) restriction of the Washington Naval Treaty if it had not expired shortly before Roma's keel laying.

[3] Although Roma took part in training exercises and was moved to various bases including Taranto, Naples, and La Spezia, in the next year, she did not go on any combat missions as the Italian Navy was desperately short of fuel.

When combined with a lack of capable vessels to escort the capital ships, the combat potential of the Italian Navy was virtually non-existent.

[11][12] Roma and her two sisters were moved from Taranto to Naples, on 12 November, in response to the Allied invasion of North Africa; while en route, the three battleships were attacked by the British submarine HMS Umbra, though no hits were made.

One hit the ship aft and to starboard of the rear main battery turret and obliterated several staterooms, which were promptly flooded from broken piping.

[3] Along with many of the principal units of the Italian fleet—including Vittorio Veneto and Italia (the ex-Littorio)[N 3]—the cruisers Eugenio di Savoia, Raimondo Montecuccoli, and Emanuele Filiberto Duca d'Aosta, and eight destroyers—Roma sailed from La Spezia with Adone Del Cima as captain and also as the flagship of Admiral Carlo Bergamini on 9 September 1943, a day after the proclamation of the 1943 Italian armistice.

The group was later joined by three additional cruisers from Genoa, Luigi di Savoia Duca degli Abruzzi, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and Attilio Regolo.

Due to Bergamini's initial reluctance to bring his ships to Malta (not knowing the details of the armistice and what would be the fate of the fleet once in Allied controlled ports) and to initial plans for the transfer of Victor Emmanuel III, his court and the government from Rome to La Maddalena, a naval base in Sardinia (the destroyers Vivaldi and Da Noli sailed from Genoa and La Spezia, heading for Civitavecchia, for this purpose), the initial destination was La Maddalena.

Once at La Maddalena, Bergamini would receive further orders (to proceed to Malta) from Admiral Bruno Brivonesi, naval commander of Sardinia, as well as some documents regarding the conditions of the armistice for the Navy.

However, an attack upon Italia and Roma at 15:37 spurred the fleet into action, as the anti-aircraft batteries onboard opened fire and all ships began evasive maneuvers.

[24] The sunken vessel was found in June 2012, by the underwater robot Pluto Palla, designed by Italian engineer Guido Gay.

Giampaolo Di Paola, himself a former naval officer and at the time defence minister, at the ceremony described the dead sailors as "unwitting heroes who found their place in history because they carried out their duty right until the end".