Giovanni Bausan was a protected cruiser of the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) that was designed and built by Sir W G Armstrong Mitchell & Co.'s Elswick Works in England in the mid-1880s.

Giovanni Bausan was intended to serve as a "battleship destroyer", and was armed with a main battery of two 10-inch (254 mm) guns to give her the ability to defeat heavy armor, but design flaws rendered her unfit for this role.

[6] She nevertheless represented a temporary embrace of the theories of the Jeune École doctrine espoused by French naval architects and strategists.

[8] The four Etna-class cruisers were half-sisters of Giovanni Bausan, built to a modified, slightly enlarged design.

[8] Armament was heavy for her size, with the main battery consisting of a pair of 10-inch (254 mm) 30-caliber breech-loading (BL) guns mounted in individual barbettes fore and aft, capable of training up to 30 degrees abaft of the beam.

Later that year, the ship was present during a naval review held for the German Kaiser Wilhelm II during a visit to Italy.

[6] During this service, she made a port visit to New York City in 1892,[15] during which she was the first foreign warship to be repaired at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 15 years.

[20] The following year, she and the protected cruisers Etna and Dogali represented Italy at the international naval review in New York, held at the start of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

[21] In 1904, Giovanni Bausan returned to Italy, where she was assigned to the Reserve Division, and two of her 6-inch guns were removed, though she was slated to be replaced by the new armored cruiser Francesco Ferruccio,[22] when she entered service in September 1905.

[23] From 1905, Giovanni Bausan served as a training ship for stokers and mechanics until the outbreak of the Italo-Turkish War in 1912.

[6] Fitted with four distillers and capable of producing 200 tons of fresh water every 24 hours, she was operating in this role at the start of the First World War.

Because of the pressing need for artillery for service with the army,[24] Giovanni Bausan was partially disarmed in 1915, losing her 10-inch guns and two of the 6-inch pieces.