Designing the Superliners

Originally, Italia Line planned their new flagships to be a pair of 35 000 ton liners, only slightly larger than the Leonardo da Vinci with her 33 000 tons. However, after reviewing their options on the new ships, Italia Line decided to order a pair of approximately 45 000 ton ships. They would accommodate 1 775 passengers, or 1 200 at cruises. It was decided that the new ships would use the conventional three-class system with different accommodations for passengers of First, Cabin and Tourist classes. This was by hindsight a mistake, for if the ships had been designed instead to a two-class system with minimal differences between the classes like the Queen Elizabeth 2 (4 years Michelangelo and Raffaello's junior), they would have probably survived the final collapse of the Atlantic route and become full-time cruiseships.   Not only were the new ships to be big (the longest to be built after the war with the exception of the France), they were also to be fast. Italian line deciced to give the ships a service speed of 26.5 knots, but they were capable of better speeds if such were required. The power to the ships was provided with steam turbines that turned twin propellers. Though they were fast ships, Italia Line wisely decided not try to take the Blue Riband from the speed-queen United States, since it would have been rather expensive to build and maintain engines that could beat the States' record speed of 35.59 knots.

At early planning stages the new ships took a traditional shape, that of two black-hulled liners with conventional funnels. However, their funnels were soon re-drawn to a never-before-seen shape, based on designs by Professor Mortarino of Turin Polytecnic. These funnels were in fact originally designed for Lloyd Triestino's ships Guglierno Marconi and Galileo Galilei, but Lloyd Triestino had opted for a more conventional design.   These trellis style funnels (located aft), with the big smoke deflectors, were very discussed and criticized during the projecting phase, because several ones though they were horrible and too different from classic style. At last they were adopted and they gave the unmistakable and unique profile to the two ships. Scale models of the funnels where long studied and tested in the wind-tunnel of the mechanical university in Torino. The main property of that funnels layout was that they efficiently dispersed almost all the smoke away from the ship.

The famed, 489 capacity theatre onboard the Michelangelo, located to the rear of Boat Deck.

The hull colour of the new ships was also subject to some debate: black was the traditional hull colour for liners, but it was thought that a white hull might convince passengers that the ships would offer the same level of luxury that the cruise ships that were becoming more and more common on the seven seas. White also showed to be more resistant in the warm Mediterranean climate, thus reducing the need of re-painting the ship.

When finally building a true superliner for the North-Atlantic route after an absense of twenty years, Italia line decided that the new ships interiors, as their exteriors, would be among the most beautiful and luxurious on the high seas. Italia line decided to leave the lavish classism that the previous Italian superliners Rex and Conte di Savoia had sported behind, and decorate the ship in the Art-Deco style that had first been used on the French liner Īle de France in 1927. The ships' ballrooms were lit by three giant chandeliers, remiscent of those on the Normandie's dining hall from 1935. Both ships had 31 different public rooms for passengers, making sure that they would not get bored during the long journey. Among these rooms were the praised 489-capacity cinema, the forementioned ballroom, a cinema/auditorium and a teenager's room.

Raffaello's teenager club, located at the aft of Upper Deck.

Technically, the Michelangelo and Raffaello were also the most technologically advanced ships built after the war, specially their control panel and control system in the engine room were the most advanced in the '60. Michelangelo had 30 lounges, 3 night clubs, 760 cabins and the automatic phone switchboard had 850 numbers. The car garage hosted more than 50 cars. The restaurants extended themselves from "wall to wall" so they had the full width of the hull. The water distiller provided 1 million liters of water for day   Since the ships took a southern route to New York, it meant that like in the previous Italian liners, much emphasis was placed in the design of the decks. There were six swimming pools on the ships, childrens' and adults' polls for each class, with the ones for adults being heated if the weather turned chilly. There were kennels under the foremost funnel there was a kennel for first class passengers, remiscent of the kennel of the Normandie from 1935. The only bad thing to be said about the ships is the fact that there were no cabins with windows below the A deck. Even thought this made the ships safer, it proved to be a handicap when the ships entered service, as people were gewtting used to a high level of comfort, such as cabins with windows.    The task of building the new ships commerced only within moths of each other, Michelangelo's at Ansaldo shipyards in Genoa, and Raffaello at CR dell'Adriatico at Trieste. Both shipyards were old aquitances to Italian Line. Ansaldo had constructed Roma, Augustus, Rex, Andrea Doria, Cristofo Colombo and Leonardo da Vinci, while CR dell'Adriatico had been responsible for the stunning Conte di Savoia in 1933. Even though the Michelangelo and Raffaello were supposed to become indentical sisters, the fact that they were constructed at different shipyards meant that there were slight differences between them on the outside. The Raffaello was 0.7 meters longer, 0.9 meters narrower and weighted 22 tons more than her sister. There were also some purely cosmetic differences: Michelangelo's aft mast was painted black on the top, and the swimming pools on the ships were differently furnished, the Michelangelo's were ornamental and rather luxuriously furnished, whereas the Raffaello's pool was very simple.