Although the city of Massa had already known its maximum medieval splendor in the
11th century with the Marquisate of Massa and Corsica ruled by the
Obertenghi family, the original nucleus of the state was officially born on 22 February 1473 with the purchase of the
Lordship of Carrara by the Lordship of Massa in the time headed by the Marquis Jacopo Malaspina, who obtained it from Count Antoniotto Fileremo of
Genoa, progenitor of the
Fregoso line. The noble title of this branch of the
Malaspina family therefore became that of Marquises of Massa and lords of Carrara. From the purchase of the Carrara territory onwards, the seat of Jacopo Malaspina, one of the sons of Antonio Alberico I Malaspina, formerly Marquis of
Fosdinovo, was located in the city of Carrara, but due to the frequent clashes with the French invaders who occurred often, he and his successors moved to Massa. Within two generations the Malaspina family died out in male descent and
Ricciarda, Iacopo's eldest surviving granddaughter, married in 1520 with
Lorenzo Cybo, member of the
House of Cybo, an old and influential family of
Genoese aristocrats.
Pope Innocent VIII (Lorenzo's grandfather) belonged to it and they were related to the
Medici (
Maddalena de' Medici was Lorenzo's mother, and her brother,
Pope Leo X, had himself arranged the Malaspina marriage, together with Lorenzo's elder brother, Cardinal
Innocenzo Cybo) . From the marriage the new Cybo-Malaspina family originated, which was to rule the states of Massa and Carrara until 1829. The marriage, however, was rather stormy: the two spouses disputed for a long time the governance of the marquisate and in 1529 Ricciarda managed to obtain from
emperor Charles V the investiture of the marquisate, in derogation of the
Salic law, for herself, for her male descendants in order of primogeniture or, in their absence, also for females. Under his 70-year rule the fiefdom experienced a very favorable period of development, thanks also to the advantageous economic situation in the marble market, which was in great demand by the
Renaissance courts of the time. Alberico I, aware that his statelet was surrounded by more powerful and influential neighbors, continued his mother's policy of alignment with the
Holy Roman Empire of Charles V of Habsburg, who officially confirmed his investiture of the fiefdom in 1554. In 1568 Massa and Carrara were elevated respectively to marquisate and to principality by the
Emperor Maximilian II. In 1664, during the rule of Alberico II,
Leopold I of Habsburg raised the Principality of Massa to the rank of duchy and the Marquisate of Carrara to a principality. , the main seat of the
House of Malaspina, rulers of the Massa and Carrara state before 1563 In 1741
Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina, the last scion of the family, married
Ercole Rinaldo d'Este, the only male heir of the
Duchy of Modena and Reggio. Their only surviving child,
Maria Beatrice d'Este, was thus the last descendant of both families, During the Napoleonic domination Maria Beatrice d'Este (who had succeeded her mother in 1790) was forced to take refuge in Vienna with the family of her husband,
Ferdinand Karl, Archduke of Austria-Este, uncle of
Emperor Francis II, and pretender to the ducal throne of Modena and Reggio. With the fall of the Napoleonic regime, the
Congress of Vienna again assigned to Maria Beatrice the ancestral duchy of which she had been dispossessed. The
imperial fiefs in
Lunigiana (starting with the
Marquisate of Fosdinovo), which were not re-established, were also bestowed upon her, but she handed them over almost immediately to her son and heir
Francis IV of Austria Este, who had bee appointed Duke of Modena and Reggio. In 1829, on the death of Maria Beatrice, the Duchy of Massa and the Principality of Carrara were annexed by her son and heir to the Duchy of Modena and Reggio. In 1860, with the deposition, the previous year, of
Francis V, the Duchy of Modena and Reggio (also including the territories of Massa and Carrara) was annexed to the
Kingdom of Sardinia, of which it constituted the
Province of Massa-Carrara. ==Rulers of Massa and Carrara==