Piemonte was a unique protected cruiser built for the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) in the 1880s by the British shipyard Armstrong Whitworth.

[1][2] Piemonte was the first major warship to be armed with medium-caliber, quick-firing guns; these weapons would become the standard armament for cruisers in the 1890s.

[4][5] The ship was powered by two 4-cylinder Humphrys, Tennant vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one propeller shaft.

[6] Steam for the engines was supplied by four double-ended Scotch marine boilers at a pressure of 155 psi (1,069 kPa; 11 kgf/cm2) and their exhausts were trunked into a pair of funnels amidships.

[2] In 1890, Piemonte participated in the annual fleet maneuvers in the First Squadron, along with the ironclad Lepanto, Dogali, and several torpedo boats.

The attempt at gunboat diplomacy secured an official apology from the Brazilian government, as well as an arrangement to adjudicate Italian claims of damages by the United States' and German ambassadors.

[12] She passed through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea and stopped to coal in British Aden while en route to Asian waters.

[17][18] On 24 February, Piemonte arrived in Seoul and landed a contingent of infantry to augment the guards at the Italian embassy.

The maneuvers were modeled on a potential war with Italy's nominal ally Austria-Hungary, and the fact that the relative strengths of the two squadrons mirrored the Italian and Austro-Hungarian navies was not lost on analysts in Vienna.

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.

[23] 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.

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

On 7 January, they found the gunboats and quickly sank four in the Battle of Kunfuda Bay; the other three were forced to beach to avoid sinking as well.

[26] Piemonte 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.

On 27 July and 12 August, Piemonte, the torpedo cruisers Caprera and Aretusa conducted two bombardments of Al Hudaydah.

[29] The primary naval opponent for the duration of the war was the Austro-Hungarian Navy; the Naval Chief of Staff, Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, planned a distant blockade with the battle fleet, while smaller vessels, such as the MAS boats conducted raids.

[30] As a result, the ship's activities during the war was limited and she spent much of it based at Salonica, Greece, as part of the Anglo-French Levant Squadron.