The Giuseppe Garibaldi with its sister ships the Varese and the Francesco belonged to the Garibaldi class, and during their completion they were hailed as the greatest success of Italian shipbuilding of that time. The completed ship Giuseppe Garibaldi received its war insignia on 23rd February 1902 and entered the fleet of the Italian Navy’s list.
During its service the Garibaldi participated in the Italo-Turkish War acting with the squadron in the waters of Libya, the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Its career during the First World War was brief. The Italian squadron whose command ship was the Giuseppe Garibaldi, sailed on 17th July 1915 with the mission of bombing the Dubrovnik-Cavtat-Herceg Novi railway. On 18th July at 0320 hrs. the military command at the Bay of Kotor received a radiotelegraph dispatch that an enemy formation had been spotted. The message was immediately forwarded to the flotilla in the Bay of Kotor and the submarine Singule spotted the enemy ships as they sailed towards Dubrovnik. He stopped the engines and waited. The Italian ships turned towards the Bay of Kotor. Singule followed them travelling at the surface until the moment at 04:37 hrs. when the ships from the squadron noticed him. The Garibaldi immediately opened fire. At 04:38 hrs. Singule launched two torpedoes from a distance of 600 metres towards the Garibaldi. About 30 seconds later the torpedoes hit the Garibaldi near the middle of the right flank of the ship. The heavily damaged cruiser sank in just three minutes. A total of 525 sailors and the Rear Admiral Eugenio Trifari were rescued, while 53 Italian sailors were killed.
In August 2009 a group of technical divers under the leadership of Dražen Goričko confirmed the correct position of the wreck at a depth of 122 metres. It was confirmed that the wreck lies on a muddy bottom, completely inverted, i.e. the keel facing the surface. The wreck due to strong currents is thickly overgrown with algae, corals, crustaceans and sponges to the extent that some parts of the ship cannot be recognised at all.
The wreck of the armoured cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi is the deepest documented wreck found in the Adriatic so far.
