SS Cristoforo Colombo () was an Italian ocean liner built in the 1950s, brother ship of the . Origins and construction The origins of the Cristoforo Colombo lie in the situation of the Italian Line at the end of World War II. The war had been devastating to them, as two of their newest and largest ships – the and – had been destroyed. The Italian Line at this point decided to build only moderately-sized ships that were very luxurious, comfortable, and stylish. The Cristoforo Colombo was built in Genoa at the Ansaldo Shipyards. The Andrea Doria was already built by the time Cristoforo Colombo was completed. He was launched in 1953 and was ready for a 1954 maiden voyage. When launched, the Cristoforo Colombo was larger than the Andrea Doria. Hence, the ship was the largest merchant ship in Italian service. Italian Line service After the Andrea Doria was sunk after a collision with the in 1956, the Cristoforo Colombo was on his own until 1960 when the ship was joined by the Andrea Doria'''s replacement, SS Leonardo da Vinci. In the spring of 1964, the Cristoforo Colombo carried the Pietà from the Vatican to the 1964 New York World's Fair. Pietà was put in a crate that was filled with plastic foam, which was lowered onto a rubber base in the first class pool where the least damage was likely to happen to it. During the actual loading, the Cristoforo Colombo had been put in dry dock so that he would not move and jeopardize the crate and its content. Only easily removable snap hooks secured the crate so that it could be released easily in case of an accident. If the Cristoforo Colombo sank during the voyage, the trunk could float. In New York, the crate was lifted by a heavy-lift floating crane onto a barge that was put alongside the ship. The Cristoforo Colombo and the Leonardo da Vinci were kept as the flagships and the prime Italian ships on the North Atlantic until 1965, when the new and were placed into service. He was painted entirely white in 1966 in order to match with the other ships in the Italian Line, who had abandoned black as a hull colour. The ship brought many Italian postwar immigrants to the United States and Canada calling at Halifax and New York in the last decades of large-scale ocean