The Regioni class was a group of six protected cruisers built for the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) in the late 1880s through the early 1900s.

The ships served in a variety of roles throughout their careers, including scouts for the main fleet, colonial cruisers, and representatives of Italy at major foreign events.

The remaining ships, except for Lombardia, took part in the Italo-Turkish War in 1911–1912, where they provided gunfire support to Italian troops, bombarded Ottoman ports, and instituted a blockade in the Red Sea.

The remaining ships were broken up for scrap in the early 1920s, though the bow section of Puglia was preserved at the Vittoriale degli italiani museum.

All previous ships of the type had been designed in Britain, or in the case of the Etna class, enlarged copies of the British-designed Giovanni Bausan.

As a first attempt, the ships of the Regioni class proved to be a disappointment, owing to their slow speed and insufficient armor protection.

Their first decade in service was marked by frequent deployments abroad, interspersed between stints in the main Italian fleet, where they served as scouts for the battleships.

[6] Lombardia was stationed in South America in 1896, when an outbreak of yellow fever killed half of her crew while she was in Rio de Janeiro.

[14][15] Elba and Liguria were modified to operate an observation balloon to assist in spotting naval mines, which could be more easily seen from the air.

[16] In December 1910, Umbria was sold to the Haitian Navy and renamed Consul Gostrück, though she sank shortly after the transfer due to her new crew's inexperience.

Etruria and Liguria took part in the assault on Benghazi and thereafter provided gunfire support to Italian forces in North Africa.

These included a diversionary attack that helped the cruiser Piemonte and two destroyers sink or force aground a flotilla of seven Ottoman gunboats in the Battle of Kunfuda Bay.

[22] Etruria was deliberately blown up in Livorno on 13 August 1918 to fool Austria-Hungary into believing its espionage network, which had been thoroughly compromised, was still operational.

[3] That month, Puglia became involved in the civil unrest in Split, and the ship's captain and another sailor were murdered by a group of Croat nationalists.

The Navy sold 'Puglia in March 1923,[3] but while she was being dismantled Benito Mussolini donated her bow section to the Vittoriale degli italiani museum.