“Here are photographs of my model of the Italian dreadnought battleship Dante Alighieri. It is built in 1:550 scale. Dante Alighieri is the only battleship that I know of that is named after a poet. Dante Alighieri was the first battleship designed with triple turrets and was allegedly the fastest battleship in the world upon entering into service. As with the other Italian battleships, her career during World War I was uneventful, being limited to the bombardment of Durazzo in October 1918. Unfortunately, her main armament arrangement did not permit accommodation for modernization due to space limitations, so she was scrapped in 1928. The model represents the ship as built and before her 1923 modernization when her forward funnels were raised and she was given a tripod foremast. With her four funnels, she is a very interesting ship.”    –Gregory Shoda, SteelNavy

Contributed by Bernard Barryte