Duchy of Massa and Carrara Genoa. Alberico I brought large urban restructurations in the cities of Carrara and Massa, mainly for prestige reasons. Both cities were equipped with new city walls - with representative functions, rather than military, since the policy of the territory was not expansionist - and new ducal palaces. In Carrara was established the Office of Marble (1564), to regulate the marble mining industry. The city of Massa, in particular, saw much of its plan redesigned (new roads, plazas, intersections, pavings) in order to make it worthy of an Italian country's capital. The War of Spanish Succession (1701–1714) was the beginning of
Duchy of Massa and Carrara was annexed to the Duchy of Modena and Reggio by her son Francesco IV d'Este. In 1859, with the deposition of Francesco V d'Este, the Duchy of Modena and Reggio (which also includes the territories of Massa and Carrara) was permanently attached to the Kingdom of Sardinia, with the formation of province of Massa-Carrara in December 1859. The merge of the Malaspina family with the Cybo family brought the territory to a rather lavish court life. In the conduct of foreign policy the Cybo-Malaspina maintained a role as an intermediary between the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Republic of