Italy’s dominant political parties, the center-right People of Liberty and the center-left Democratic Party, are participating in Mr. Monti’s government but are averse to being too closely associated with the tough measures he has already put in place and the others he is still pushing for. Some opposition parties have been pressing for new elections to be held before Mr. Monti’s term ends in 2013.

Since Mr. Monti came to power, the Italian economy — like most of those in Europe — has grown weaker. It is expected to contract 1.5 percent this year and increase just 0.5 percent in 2013. Italian banks have sharply curtailed lending, pushing thousands of small and midsize Italian businesses into bankruptcy.

Italy’s unemployment rate has marched above 10 percent, well above Germany’s 5.4 percent, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical agency.

Its government debt, already at 120 percent of gross domestic product, will almost certainly continue to rise, especially if Italy must pay a larger portion of the bill for shoring up the monetary union. In many respects, Italy is still better off than Spain and the three other bailout recipients — Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Its annual budget deficit has shrunk to 2.8 percent of G.D.P., which is down from 4.2 percent a year earlier and below the 3 percent level required by the euro union.

Italy has Europe’s second-largest manufacturing and industrial base, after Germany’s, and is one of the biggest export-oriented economies in the euro zone. “Made in Italy” is still a valuable brand the world over, led by icons like Ferrari cars, Gucci handbags and Ducati motorcycles. The country is also filled with state-owned assets like power companies and the national postal service that could bring in billions of euros should the government manage to privatize them.

Despite recent downgrades by the ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service, Italian banks are relatively sound — at least compared with Spain’s — because they are not saddled with bad debts from a real estate bubble. And even though the Italian government issues more bonds than any other euro zone country, the Italian public owns about half that debt, meaning banks are less vulnerable to fluctuations in the bonds’ value than banks in Spain, which are heavily invested in their government’s risky bonds.

Even so, deposits have been fleeing Italian banks for havens in Switzerland, according to several bankers at the weekend conference, on concern that Mr. Monti will raise taxes for the wealthy and as a hedge if the euro zone economy takes a turn for the worst.