La Regina del Mare Adriatico

La Regina del Mare Adriatico or The Queen of the Adriatic Sea (アドリア海の女王) is the name of two magic related objects in the Toaru Majutsu no Index universe. Most notably it is the name of a 9th century large-scale weapon and flagship created by the Roman Catholic Church for use against Venice, to destroy it, it's influences and culture. It is one of the Ten Holy Artifacts of the Roman Catholic Church.

Though a powerful weapon itself, the flagship requires several other ships made of ice as a convoy. These ships are called the Queen's Fleet (女王艦隊) as reference to it being the fleet of the flagship, the Queen of the Adriatic Sea.

Appearance
All ships including the flagship itself is made out of ice that has been taken from the seawater, giving it a translucent crystalline look, and has a haunting lightbulb glow when light is reflected on its surface from the water, moonlight or even any surrounding streetlight. This light is even visible from a considerable distance. The water used for creating the ice ship had it's freezing point and melting point altered with magic, as such the the ice will not melt under regular conditions and is not cold to the touch, though it still retains some qualities such as human skin touching the surface would slightly stick with it upon contact.

Queen's Fleet Ships
On the outside the ship is extremely large, with the length of over 100 meters, with the distance between the deck and the bottom about 20 meters. The ship has 3 levels up and 5 to 7 levels down, and comparing to Touma's apartment building, it is significantly much larger overall. The ship has 4 masts and at least 1 gun deck, with 10 cannons positioned on each side.

As with the outside, the inside of the ship along with all it's contents (such as the door and even the door knob) are made out of magically modified ice as well, which also makes of the walls inside of the ship seem to glow due in part to the reflection of light. As expected from a such a large vessel, the ship contains several rooms, such as the usual cabins for personnel, guns and cannons, and a clinic.

The anime adaptation depicts the ship as a barq-type sailing vessel, with four masts, with the last one the aftemost mast the only fore-and-aft rigged. One special thing to note about the ice ships is that it has only 1 sail for each of its masts. All-in-all, the size of the entire fleet is equivalent to that of a city.

La Regina del Mare Adriatico
The La Regina del Mare Adriatico is twice the size of the other ships of the Queen's Fleet in comparison. The main difference between the flagship and the fleetships is that the flagship is more focused on aesthetics rather than militaristic purpose.With glamarous carvings on it's walls, artistic modifications to even the most trivial objects such as doorknobs, and was seemingly designed to look like a palace. One notable aspect it has is that it has a figurehead of the Virgin Mary. It is said to be imitating the ancient state galleys of Venice, used by the Doges of Venice for the annual Marriage to the Adriatic, performed out in the sea using the ships. Entrance to the ship is a large door, although which are guarded by ice golems who will attack those who are not permitted to enter.

The inside of the ship is similar to the other ships as it is also made of ice, having cabins on it's own and the like, though much more finely decorated. The flagship also houses a large meeting area, that resembles a large opera house or auditorium, though it functions more similarly to that of a Parliament building.

The most notable and important aspect of the flagship is the room that houses the weapon itself. To access the room, people must enter a large, intricately designed double door. The room is shaped as a perfectly square pyramid about 20 meters in length. Using magic, the tallness of the pyramid (about 100 meters high) can be fitted into the small size of the ship, furthermore the floor uses equilateral triangles with no other shapes to fill the gaps. In the middle of the room contains the core of the La Regina del Mare Adriatico, a spherical structure 7 meters in diameter made out of ice.

It is said that the ship was created by building it around the room that houses the weapon.

The anime adaptation depicts the ship as barque-type sailing vessel, though much larger than the ice ships, also having two gun decks as well as the aforementioned figurehead.

Background
During the 9th century, Venice was one of the most powerful city-states in Northern Italy, defeating several nearby powers and was a constant antagonist to both the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Empire as they did not come under it's dominion, becoming a powerful threat to them as Venice controlled economic trade in the region.

However, the catalyst that would brought about the creation of the weapon would when merchants brought what said to be the remains of St. Mark the Evangelist into Venice St. Mark's Basillica was later built to house his body. With the intention of creating Venice similar to that of the Vatican and St. Peter, a place of pilgrimage for believers where it houses the body of Saints to protect their rest. As a result of this, the Roman Catholic Church built La Regina del Mare Adriatico to deal with Venice, and created the Queen's Fleet along with it to defend the weapon against opposing fleets that would attack it.

Although the weapon was created to utterly destroy Venice and it's influences, it was not used by the Roman Catholic Church under the fear of economic disaster brought about by Venices destruction. However, Venice later gained information regarding the weapon, because of this, Venice conquered places that they suspected had the weapon, such as Padova, Vicenza and Chioggia. However, the fear brought about the existence of La Regina del Mare Adriatico, caused a financial distress onto Venice after financing the invasions, and the country later crumbled shortly afterwards.

Naming
The name La Regina del Mare Adriatico, is one of the epithets given to the city of Venice. The name is one of the rather appropriate accolades given to the city among other things, since Venice was originally a military state that had control over the Adriatic Sea. This would indicate that the name refers to Venice's rule over the Adriatic as is a duty of the queen, however, this also applies to the similarly named weapon of the Roman Catholic Church, indicating that it is superior to Venice or is the one that truly rules over the Adriatic sea.

La Regina del Mare Adriatico Arc
Main article:La Regina del Mare Adriatico Arc The weapon is featured during this arc, after a series of unfortunate of events occurring to the Roman Catholic Church with Academy City being at fault, the Church finally allowed the mobilization of the weapon and it's fleet with the intention of destroying Academy City and all of it's influences. Using the Rosary of the Appointed Time to change the target of the weapon from Venice to that of Academy City.

Coincidentally, Kamijou Touma was in Chioggia during it's mobilization, and under the fear that he would sabotage the mission (since he was present in several cases that ruined the Church's plans) they attacked him, though to no avail. Later, with the help of the Amakusa Church, who engages the Queen's Fleet in battle. Touma defeats the commander of the fleet, Biagio Busoni, and help rescue the sacrifice for the Rosary of the Appointed Time, Agnese Sanctis, as well as her forces.

The Queen's Fleet and La Regina del Mare Adriatico is later destroyed by Touma.