A power cut plunged Italy into darkness early this morning in a blackout the head of the national grid blamed on the failure of two key power lines from France.
However, power has now been fully restored in the affected areas of northern Italy, including the cities of Turin and Milan.
The island of Sardinia and other small pockets of the Italian mainland were the only areas to escape the blackout.
Mr Andrea Bollino, chairman of the Italian national grid, GRTN, said the simultaneous failure of the two key power lines from France triggered transmission outages across northern Italy and plunged the country into darkness.
Italy is reliant on a constant supply of imported power.
French grid operator Reseau de Transport d'Electricite (RTE) said the blackout was caused by line failures between Switzerland and Italy, followed by a brief interruption to supplies from France.
Trains were left stranded nationwide and the outage brought an early close to an all-night party in Rome, where shops, tourist sites and museums were meant to stay open until daybreak.
The power cut is the latest to hit a European country.
About five million consumers in eastern Denmark and southern Sweden were left in the dark last Wednesday after the worst blackout there in 20 years.
That followed last month's huge outage that left 50 million North Americans without power for up to two days and a shutdown which paralysed London for several hours.
Italy suffered several power outages over the summer as temperatures soared.