 As Emperor, Henry had planned to restore the glory of the Holy Roman Empire, but he did not reckon on the bitterly divided state that Italy had now become.Decades of warfare and strife had seen the rise of dozens of independent city-states, each one nominally Guelph or Ghibelline, backed by either urban nobles supporting a powerful ruler (such as Milan), or the rising non-noble merchant classes embedded in oligarchic republican states (such as Florence).Each of these contests had created bitter losers, each of whom looked to the emperor-elect for restitution.