The Salic law in force in the territories of the Empire seemed thus in some way safeguarded, and Ricciarda was in the meantime named "lady and mistress and usufructuary and heiress of his [Antonio Alberico's] inheritance and assets, as long as she is of age to conceive and bear children".
In a period in which Italy was overrun by the wars between France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Italian states, she proved adroit in wangling her way amid conflicting interests and, despite being a relative of Pope Clement VII by marriage and often living in Rome, she managed to win the Emperor Charles V's favour.
Thus, in 1529, also to counter her husband's ambitions to get his hands on her father's fiefdoms, she succeeded in getting invested with them suo jure with a truly unusual imperial decree: in derogation of the Salic law, it gave her the right to transmit her titles not only to her male descendants, but, in their absence, also to females, always respecting the newly established principle of primogeniture.
The following year her husband went on the counterattack and in turn managed to get himself appointed "co-owner" of the two fiefdoms by Charles V, but the two spouses could no longer find terms of mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence.
After a failed attempt by Lorenzo to oust her from the throne by force in 1538, Ricciarda turned again to the emperor: in 1541 she succeeded in having the 1530 imperial decree revoked and thus got rid of her husband's claims for good.
Ricciarda was a strong and stubborn woman ahead of her time, pleasure-loving and of easy virtue but also proud of her own prerogatives and determined to defend them at all costs even against her male family members who strived to trample on them.