Malaspina

The House of Malaspina was a Lombard marquessal house of Obertenghi stock; its ancestor Oberto I became count of Luni in 945 and marquis of the Genoese march in 951. Alberto Malaspina (died 1140) first bore the surname, Italian for bad thorn; his son Obizzo I switched sides in Frederick Barbarossa's wars before joining the Lombard League at Legnano in 1176.

In 1221 the inheritance split into the Spino Secco (dried thorn) and Spino Fiorito (bloomed thorn), dividing the Lunigiana; repeated partition shattered it into small marquisates. The house sheltered the exiled Dante through Moroello and Franceschino Malaspina, earning praise in the eighth canto of Purgatory.

Spinetta Malaspina the Great bought Fosdinovo in 1340; his descendants made it autonomous in 1355 and ruled as imperial vicars until the last marquis renounced his feudal rights under Napoleonic rule in 1797. A related line took Massa in 1441 and soon added Carrara, becoming by marriage the Cybo-Malaspina dukes of Massa and Carrara.