launchers. She was protected with an armored belt that was thick amidships, and capped with transverse, armored bulkheads on either end of the citadel. The forward bulkhead was and the aft was . Her armor deck was 50 mm thick in the central portion of the ship and reduced to at either end. The gun turrets had thick plating on the faces and the barbettes they sat in were 60–70 mm thick. The main conning tower had 100 mm thick sides and a thick roof. Service history The keel for Bolzano was laid down at Ansaldo's shipyard in Genoa on 11 June 1930, and her completed hull was launched on 31 August 1932. The ship was completed on 19 August 1933 and commissioned into the Italian fleet. On 2 December, Bolzano joined and in the 2nd Division of the 1st Squadron. The ship received her battle flag on 29 June 1934 at a ceremony held in the Grand Canal of Venice, in company with Trento. The following month, the 2nd Division became the 3rd Division. On 27 November 1936, she took part in a naval review for the Regent of Hungary, Miklós Horthy. From 10 to 12 March 1937, Bolzano escorted the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on a cruise to Italian Libya. The ship steamed to the Balearic Islands to retrieve the bodies of six Italian sailors who had been killed on 25 May aboard the auxiliary cruiser by Republican bombers during the Spanish Civil War; Bolzano arrived back in Italy on 3 June. Four days later, she took part in training exercises in the Gulf of Naples; these were held during the visit of German Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg. Another major fleet review took place on 5 May 1938, this time to honor German dictator Adolf Hitler during his state visit. Mussolini visited Bolzano in January 1939 while she was stationed in La Maddalena, Sardinia. The ship took part in a review for Prince Paul of Yugoslavia in the Gulf of Naples on 17 May. She was also present during the first Navy Day celebration, held between 5 and 19 June in Livorno. World War II Upon Italy's entrance into the Second World War on 10 June 1940, Bolzano was assigned to the 2nd Division in the 2nd Squadron, along with the two Trento-class cruisers. On 9 July, the ship took part in the Battle of Calabria; there,