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.

Their only surviving child, Maria Beatrice d'Este, was thus the last descendant of both families,[3] but, as a woman, she was not entitled to succeed under Salic law and was only permitted to take over the Duchy of Massa and Carrara thanks to the exemption wrested almost three centuries earlier by her indomitable and often reviled ancestor, Ricciarda Malaspina.

As a last administrative change, in 1806, the French emperor assigned the Duchy of Massa and Carrara to the Principality of Lucca and Piombino, governed by his older sister Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi.

[5] 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.

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, Duke of Modena.

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.

Alderamo arrived to force people to buy food at a premium, and also because of the luxurious and extravagant lifestyle of the nobleman, the economics of the Duchy was brought to its knees.

Under the domination of the Este, the Duchy of Massa Carrara rose to occupy a strategic position, in that it provided a sea outlet to the hinterland domains and promised an easier trade route.

During the Napoleonic rule were also initiated other public works such as the bonification of the plains, the plantation of coastal pine trees to combat malaria and arrangement of river banks.

The rulers tried several times to exit the stagnation in promoting the construction of infrastructure to increase the volume of trade, but the lack of money often proves an insurmountable obstacle.