In 1913, it was a seminal year for Italian Naval Aviation, when Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, Italian Navy Chief of Staff, established the Servizio Aeronautico della Regia Marina (the Navy Bureau of the Italian Aircraft) and, in the same year, the Aviation Training School and the Air Fleet. Several attempts were made to make a variety of hulls suitable for aircraft operations at sea but in 1914 the cruiser Elba became the first to be so fitted.
The interwar years were a period of inter service rivalry between the Air Force and the Italian Navy over who would operate and control aircraft design, manufacture, and operations. Eventually, politicians decided that the Air Force would, in future, be in overall control and that any naval aviation operations had to be authorised by the Air Force. This situation led to a period where very little investment was made in the lead up to the Second World War, although the navy had developed a small number of former merchant ships into seaplane carriers such as the which was converted into the twin-catapult-equipped seaplane tender . Commissioned in 1927, the ship could carry as many as four large and 16 medium seaplanes and was primarily used as an experimental catapult ship for
