ROME — He seemed stunned, if immaculately tailored in a dark suit that sheathed him like armor.

But the Silvio Berlusconi who stood before the Italian Senate on Wednesday was no longer invincible. His brazen attempt to bring down Italy’s coalition government had provoked a mutiny in his own party. Most startling, Mr. Berlusconi, the powerful former prime minister, was reversing himself and bending to the rebellion.

For all the Shakespearean elements of pride, betrayal and hubris displayed on Wednesday during the political theatrics, the government survived a confidence vote with unexpected ease. The more significant news was that moderates promising deep reforms scored an unusually decisive victory in the most unstable of the euro zone’s big economies.

At a time when several major countries, notably including the United States, are paralyzed by partisan political warfare, the defeat for Mr. Berlusconi was greeted by many as a welcome, if still tentative, sign that Italy could carry out long-delayed changes to its political system and take steps to revive its sclerotic economy. “We are seeing the long twilight of the Berlusconi era,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political analyst in Rome.

Mr. Berlusconi’s attempt to bring down the government was intended to resuscitate his endangered political career as he faces a pending prison sentence, analysts say. Instead, it fractured his center-right movement in Italy, which was threatened with a wave of defections. Standing in the Senate, Mr. Berlusconi, 77, was forced to reverse himself and pledge his party’s support for the same government that he had failed to topple.