Leonardo da Vinci was a Conte di Cavour class

Conte di Cavour class battleship

The Conte di Cavour class was a battleship class of the Regia Marina in World War I and World War II.-Design:This class was the second group of dreadnoughts in the Regia Marina. The ships were designed by Admiral Edoardo Masdea....

 battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

 of the Regia Marina

Regia Marina

The Regia Marina dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification...

(Italian Royal Navy). She was 170 metres long, small for a battleship. Her twenty boilers and four shafts generated 24MW and gave a top speed of 11 m/s (41 km/h, 21 knots, 25 mph). She was crewed by about 1,000 men.

Leonardo da Vinci was built between 18 July 1910 and 17 May 1914. During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, she capsized in Taranto

Taranto

Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....

 harbour on 2 August 1916 after an explosion blamed by the Italian authorities on Austro-Hungarian

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

sabotage. The explosion killed 249 of her crew.

On 17 September 1919, Leonardo da Vinci was refloated upside down, but repairs were never carried out, and she was sold on 26 March 1923 for scrapping. She officially was stricken on 22 September 1923.