A Short History of the Italian Line

In the late 1920's Italy's Il Duce, fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, decided that his country should me among the leading ones in the world on all areas, be it science, military, or the high seas. Up to this point all presitigious ships on the Atlantic had since the latter half of 19th century been either British or German. Indeed at this point German Norddeutcher Lloyd (North German Lloyd, NDL) was building it's two new speed-champions Bremen and Europa. As it was a fact that the transatlantic liners of each country were their showcases to the world, Mussolini decided that for the first time in it's history, Italy would build a pair of prestigious, large liners to compete on the Atlantic trade.

Conte di Savoia, one of the first lido ships.

Up to this point Italy had not had a strong shipcompany under it's flag. Il Duce came to the conclusion that three of Italy's main companies, Navigazione Generale Italiana, Lloyd Saubado and Cosulich, would be merged to form a single, strong company. At his point Saubado and Navigazione Generale had allready recieved subsidiaries to start constructing new superliners for Italy. Indeed in 1927 Mussolini had announced that soon Italy was to commence building "two ships which the whole world has been waiting for," later named Rex and Conte di Savoia. Of these two the Rex would be faster and larger, while Conte di Savoia was more luxurious, decorated in classical fillings in contravention of the style of the time, which was the Art Deco trend, set in 1927 by the French liner Īle de France.   Rex was lanched in 1932, in the tenth anniversary of Mussolini's rise to power. She eventually took the blue riband into possession a year later, only to lose it to Franch Line's Normandie in 1935. The Lido Ships continued to provide transatlantic service until 1939 and the start of the World War II. Conte di Savoia ferried troops from the Italian peninsula to Libya, but apart from that the ships remained inactive during the war.   Italy's armistice with the allies did not provide any help to Italy's laid-up ships, since Germany begun to occupy Italy. During this phase all Italy's main ships, Rex, Conte di Savoia, Roma and Augustus, were either bombed by the Allies or scutteled by the Germans. All in all, Italy had lost 31 of it's 37 passenger ships. Italian line continued to provide service with it's older vessels, Saturnia and Vulcania, until the early 50's.

When Italy had, at least partially, recovered from the war in 1949, Italian line received subsidiaries from the Italian government to build two new moderate-sized vessels (approx. 30 000 tons) to serve in the North-Atlantic run. The first of these ships, Andrea Doria, started her maiden voyage from Naples to New York in January 14. 1953. Her sister, Cristofo Colombo, took the seas a year later. However, fate took the matters again in her own hands. In July 25, 1956 the Andread Doria was accidentally rammed and sunk by Swedish-American Line's ship, the Stockholm. Italia Lines was, naturally, devastated from losing their prime vessel. After recovering from the shock Italia Lines' directors soon ordered a replacement for the Andrea Doria, a 33 000-ton liner Leonardo da Vinci which was completed in 1960.

Leonardo da Vinci, built in 1960 to replace the sunken Andrea Doria.

In the route between Northern Europe and the US, the jet aeroplane was taking more and more of the liners passengers in 1958 half of the people who crossed the Atlantic did it by air. However, the effects of the aeroplane were much smaller in the Mediterranean area in late 1950's, and Italian Line's interest towards new superliners grew. In 1958 Italian Line started making plans for a large pair of ships to operate in the Genoa-New Your route. One thing that effected the construction of the ships were allso Italy's trade unions: a pair of new ships would get new jobs for shipyards, dockers, and most importantly sailors.