The Partenope class was a group of eight torpedo cruisers built for the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) in the 1880s and 1890s.

Based on the earlier cruiser Tripoli, the Partenope class represented a temporary embrace of the Jeune École, which emphasized the use of cheap torpedo-armed vessels as a means to defeat the much more expensive ironclad battleships of the day.

Several of the vessels saw action during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912, primarily conducting shore bombardments in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

Partenope laid minefields in the Adriatic Sea after Italy entered World War I in 1915, and was later sunk by a German U-boat in March 1918.

The design for the Partenope class was prepared by Engineering Inspector Carlo Vigna, and was based on the earlier torpedo cruiser Tripoli, the first modern vessel of the type built by Italy.

[1] The development of torpedo cruisers in Italy in the mid-1880s represented a shift away from the emphasis on large capital ships that had been built for the previous decade and toward the ideas of the Jeune École, which emphasized small, fast, torpedo-armed vessels that could damage or destroy the much larger battleships at a fraction of the cost.

[4] Their propulsion system consisted of a pair of horizontal triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a single screw propeller.

[4] Coal storage amounted to 180 long tons (180 t),[5] which provided a cruising radius of about 1,800 nautical miles (3,300 km; 2,100 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

[7][8][9] In 1895, Partenope joined a squadron that visited Great Britain,[10] and later that year took part in an international naval demonstration off Crete in an attempt to defuse tensions between Greece and the Ottoman Empire.

[14] Aretusa was stationed in the Red Sea at the outbreak of the war,[15] and she briefly engaged the Ottoman cruiser Peyk-i Şevket.

[18] Three more members of the class were sold for scrap after the end of the war, with Urania and Aretusa being stricken in 1912 and Caprera being discarded in early 1913.

[4] Partenope and Minerva laid a series of defensive minefields in the Adriatic Sea after Italy entered World War I in 1915.