Calabria was a small protected cruiser built for the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) in the 1890s, intended for service in Italy's overseas empire.

She had a steel hull sheathed with wood and zinc to protect it from fouling during lengthy deployments abroad, where shipyard facilities would not be readily available.

Steam was supplied by four coal-fired, cylindrical fire-tube boilers that were vented into a single funnel placed amidships, directly astern of the conning tower.

[6] Calabria embarked on another major overseas cruise in early 1905 with the then-midshipman Prince Ferdinando aboard, departing Venice on 4 February.

[9] By May 1906, Calabria was in Chinese waters, and on the 18th, she was present in Nanking in company with the French cruiser Descartes and the German gunboat SMS Vorwärts.

[10] In October 1909, Calabria took part in the Portola Festival in San Francisco, marking the 140th anniversary of the Portolà expedition, the first recorded European exploration of what became California.

After arriving in East African waters, she joined the cruiser Puglia in bombarding the Turkish port of Aqaba on 19 November to disperse a contingent of Ottoman soldiers there.

Hostilities were temporarily ceased while the British King George V passed through the Red Sea following his coronation ceremony in India—the ceasefire lasted until 26 November.

[16] In early 1912, the Italian Red Sea Fleet searched for a group of seven Ottoman gunboats thought to be planning an attack on Eritrea, though they were in fact immobilized due to a lack of coal.

Calabria and Puglia carried out diversionary bombardments against Jebl Tahr, and Al Luḩayyah, while the cruiser Piemonte and the destroyers Artigliere and Garibaldino searched for the gunboats.

[13] Calabria and the rest of the Italian ships returned to bombarding the Turkish ports in the Red Sea before declaring a blockade of the city of Al Hudaydah on 26 January.

[1] In January 1915, while Italy was still neutral during World War I, Calabria was sent to the coast of Ottoman Syria to assist with the protection of refugees in the area.

[20] The ship took a diplomatic mission from Massawa across the Red Sea to visit Hussein bin Ali, the recently proclaimed King of Hejaz, in Mecca in July 1917.