The design began as an enlarged and improved version of the battleship , but with her main armament of four guns mounted in lighter barbettes rather than the heavy gun turrets of the older ship. Based on experience with , in which the casemate-mounted secondary armament could often not be worked in rough weather, the Naval Technical Committee (NTC) adopted the layout of the American s with the secondary armament mounted in turrets on the upper deck. Use of the lighter barbette mounting allowed for a flush-deck hull, which gave the design high freeboard. It was approved in January 1891 by the NTC with a displacement of and a full-length waterline armor belt.