The history of Mulazzo is deeply intertwined with that of the Marquis Malaspina, a family of ancient nobility who shaped the Lunigiana with castles, fortified villages and towers. The cultural and documentary heritage of this family is now preserved and valued in the Malaspina Archive-Museum, founded thanks to Dario Manfredi, who has cataloged thousands of documents related to the family (The museum houses over 9,000 books, 600 periodicals and 25,000 handwritten documents). and, in particular, the navigator Alessandro Malaspina.
The Malaspina Archive-Museum, opened in 2005 and housed in the ancient Palazzo Malaspina of Mulazzo, aims to preserve this cultural heritage. Together with the Alessandro Malaspina Foundation, created in 2007, and the Centro di Studi Storici Alessandro Malaspina (founded in 2021), these institutions promote research and the valorization of the historical and cultural heritage of Malaspina.
Among the protagonists of the Archive-Museum, Alessandro Malaspina stands out for his famous transoceanic expedition (1789-1794) aboard the corvettes *Descubierta* and *Atrevida*, a venture commissioned by the Spanish Crown to explore and document Spanish possessions. This scientific expedition, one of the most important of the 18th century, had ambitious objectives: to draw maps, study the regions from a botanical, zoological and mineralogical point of view, and gather information on the customs and habits of the indigenous peoples.
The museum also contains documents related to some of the most influential women in the Malaspina family, such as Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina and her daughter Maria Beatrice d'Este Cybo-Malaspina, both women of great intellect and elegance who shone in the Italian and European courts of the eighteenth century. This period was marked by the growing involvement of women in literary salons and in the politics of the Enlightenment.
