The Vettor Pisani class consisted of two armoured cruisers built for the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) in the 1890s.

The former served in the Far East during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 while the latter was involved in pioneering long-range radio experiments several years later before deploying to South American waters.

Steam for the engines was supplied by eight[Note 1] Scotch marine boilers and their exhausts were trunked into a pair of funnels amidships.

[1] The main armament of the Vettor Pisani-class ships consisted of twelve quick-firing (QF) Cannone da 152/40 A Modello 1891 guns in single mounts.

[2] Vettor Pisani was the flagship of Rear Admiral Candiani, commander of the Cruising Squadron dispatched to China in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion.

[6] She arrived at La Spezia in early 1902, but only remained in Italian waters for a year before returning to the Far East for another year-long cruise.

When the coronation was delayed by Edward's illness, the ship took Victor Emmanuel to meetings with Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in Kronstadt.

Vettor Pisani spent the war in the Adriatic[11] and participated in an abortive attempt in mid-1915 to bombard a rail line near Ragusa Vecchia on the Dalmatian coast.

She began conversion into a troop transport there in 1917 and the work was finished in Taranto early the next year; she was recommissioned with the new name of Zenson.