The Italian: Regia Marina ultimately sold the ship in March 1907, though her ultimate fate is unknown.
In the late 1880s, the Italian Italian: Regia Marinas chief designer, Benedetto Brin, prepared the design for a new screw corvette to replace the earlier, which was by then more than a decade old. The new vessel is sometimes referred to as a reconstruction of the original vessel, but they were in fact distinct ships. That vessel's wooden hull had been superseded by newer steel-hulled ships like and that had been completed in the early 1880s. Brin's new design was an essential copy of the earlier vessel, though with a steel hull instead of the wooden one used in the old corvette. The Italian: Regia Marina intended to use the new ship as a colonial station ship in the Red Sea to help control Italian Eritrea. The new Italian: Cristoforo Colombo proved to be the final corvette of the Italian fleet; the navy thereafter turned to protected cruisers like for its colonial patrol duties.
Italian: Cristoforo Colombo was 76.4m (250.7feet) long between perpendiculars, with a beam of 11.3m (37.1feet) and a draft of 5.69m (18.67feet). She displaced at full load. Her steel hull was sheathed in copper to reduce biofouling, which was necessary for a ship intended to be stationed far from the level of maintenance facilities in home ports. Italian: Cristoforo Colombo had a crew of 238 officers and enlisted men.
The ship was powered with the same machinery used in the older Italian: Cristoforo Colombo, though it produced a lower speed. The engine was a 3-cylinder marine steam engine, which drove a single propeller shaft. Steam was provided by six boilers that were ducted into a pair of funnels. The propulsion system produced a top speed of 13kn from 2321ihp, though the contemporary source The Naval Pocket-Book credits the ship with a top speed of from . Coal storage capacity amounted to . To supplement the steam engine, particularly on long voyages to and from Italy's colonial empire, Italian: Cristoforo Colombo carried a barque sailing rig.
Italian: Cristoforo Colombo carried a relatively heavy gun battery for her small size, including eight 120mm 40-caliber guns. These were placed in single mounts in sponsons, four guns per broadside. Later in the ship's career, two of these guns were removed. For close-range defense against torpedo boats, she carried a secondary battery of two 24-caliber guns.
The keel for Italian: Cristoforo Colombo was laid down on 1 September 1890, and her completed hull was launched on 24 September 1892. Fitting-out work was completed on 16 October 1894, after which the ship entered service with the Italian: Regia Marina. She had already been formally assigned to the 3rd Department, based in Venice, on 1 October 1893, though she did not actually join the unit until the following year. In 1895, the ship was assigned to the Training Squadron to serve as a training ship for naval cadets in company with the corvette Italian: Flavio Gioia. The ship was based in Venice at that time.
By 1901, Italian: Cristoforo Colombo was assigned to the Red Sea to patrol Italy's East African colony in Italian Somaliland, along with the gunboats and and the training vessel Italian: Volta. She remained there the following year in company with Italian: Volturno. In 1903, the unit was renamed the Red Sea and Benadir Division, and was reinforced with the torpedo cruiser and the aviso . The following year, the unit consisted of Italian: Cristoforo Colombo, Italian: Volturno, the torpedo cruiser, and the aviso . The Italian: Regia Marina discarded the ship on 10 March 1907. Her ultimate fate is unknown.