 The Italian cruiser Vettor Pisani was the name ship of her class of two armored cruisers built for the Royal Italian Navy ( Regia Marina ) in the 1890s . She often served as a flagship during her career and frequently served overseas . On one of these deployments , the ship received a radio message from Peking , one of the first long @-@ range radio transmissions to a ship . Vettor Pisani participated in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 and the Italo @-@ Turkish War of 1911 – 12 , during which her admiral nearly caused a diplomatic incident with the Austro @-@ Hungarian Empire . During World War I , her activities were limited by the threat of Austro @-@ Hungarian submarines and she was converted into a repair ship in 1916 . Vettor Pisani was stricken from the Navy List in 1920 and scrapped later that year . 
