[1] The Parasol operated in front-line service in 1915 during the early stages of Italy's participation in World War I.

Nieuport-Macchi derived other construction details of the Parasol from the Nieuport IV already in production:[1] Mainly of wood construction covered by canvas, the Parasol had an 80-horsepower (60 kW) Gnome 7 Lambda seven-cylinder air-cooled rotary engine driving a helical wooden two-bladed fixed-pitch propeller.

Taking off from the airfield at Mirafiori with test pilot Clemente Maggiora at the controls, a Parasol set the Italian height record for an aircraft with two people on board in December 1914, reaching an altitude of 2,700 metres (8,858 ft).

With Italy's entry into World War I looming, the Royal Italian Army was looking for new equipment, and Nieuport-Macchi proposed the Parasol for use by the army's Servizio Aeronautico Militare ("Military Aviation Service"), which on 7 January 1915 became the Corpo Aeronautico Militare ("Military Aviation Corps").

[3] In June 1915, the squadron deployed from Pordenone to Medeuzza, a hamlet in San Giovanni al Natisone in northeastern Italy, to provide artillery observation support to the Italian Third Army as it fought in the trenches at Gorizia and on the Karst Plateau during the First Battle of the Isonzo.