 Neither ship had a particularly eventful career . They were completed too late to take part in the final stages of the wars of Italian unification . Instead , they were assigned to the Italian colonial empire , with occasional stints in the main Italian fleet . In 1880 , Palestro took part in a naval demonstration off Ragusa in an attempt to force the Ottoman Empire to comply with the terms of the Treaty of Berlin and turn over the town of Ulcinj to Montenegro . The following year , Principe Amedeo was involved in a collision with the ironclad Roma during a hurricane , though neither ship was damaged . 
