MALASPINA FAMILY

feudal family powerful in northern Italy in the Middle Ages. Descended from Marquis Oberto I, who was created count palatine by the Holy Roman emperor Otto I, the family at first controlled Tuscany, eastern Liguria, and the March of Lombardy. Early in the 11th century the Este, Pallavicino, and Massa-Corsica family branches separated from the Malaspina. The situation of Malaspina lands, in the mountainous regions of the Apennines, controlling the great highways connecting the Ligurian and Tuscan ports with north Italian cities, made the Malaspina powerful and helped them resist the encroachments of neighbouring cities. Repeated partition of their territory, first between two lines, the Spino Secco and the Spino Fiorito, then among many smaller subdivisions, gradually undermined their resistance to the pressure of the great communes. In the 14th century, however, they remained a leading feudal house under Franceschino Malaspina, host to Dante in 1306 during his exile, and under Spinetta Malaspina died 1352 who succeeded in extending the family territories. But in the 15th and 16th centuries, most of the Malaspina dominions passed under Genoese and Florentine control. One branch of the family prospered, Spinetta Malaspina's great-grandnephew Antonio Alberigo acquiring Massa (1421) and Carrara (1428), east of Genoa, his dominions later becoming the principate (1568) and the duchy (1633) of Massa.