taly emerged devastated from the Second World War, losing almost its entire fleet; only four ocean liners survived, having been requisitioned by the United States for wartime use. To cope with the new wave of migration, every possible hull was salvaged—some were barely seaworthy, while others were wrecks brought back to life out of sheer desperation. These ships were slow, spartan, and modest in size, a far cry from the grandeur of the 1930s. Promotional graphics inevitably reflected this drastic change.
Thanks to the tenacious diplomatic efforts of Alcide De Gasperi, the Marshall Plan funded the construction of new and remarkable ocean liners that would enter service in the early 1950s, such as the Giulio Cesare and Andrea Doria. This new fleet, rising from the ashes of the conflict, became known as the "Renaissance Fleet."
However, the advent of jet aircraft soon changed the scene, with air travel becoming the preferred mode of transport in the 1960s. In 1960, on the occasion of the Rome Olympics, the Leonardo da Vinci entered service between Genoa and New York. At the same time, Alitalia inaugurated its transatlantic service with the brand-new jet aircraft, the jumbo jets, which forever revolutionised travel: 8 hours instead of 8 days for the same destination.
Within a few years, ocean liners succumbed to the new mode of travel. In 1965, the sister ships Michelangelo and Raffaello were launched in Genoa and Trieste, the last Italian ocean liners—beautiful but ultimately redundant. A decade later, they were decommissioned, marking the end of an era.