FRANKFURT, Germany — Europe’s far-reaching review of banks set off sharp drops in the shares of Italian lenders Monday after several of them failed the year-long exercise’s test of financial strength.

Investors and analysts sifted through the huge amounts of data released Sunday as part of the test results. Bank shares initially rose overall on apparent relief that the continent’s largest banks were found to have adequate finances, but then fell, led by a plunge in Italy’s bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena. It had the biggest capital gap to fill among the 13 banks that flunked and must strengthen their financial buffers.

The key banking index, the Stoxx Europe 600 Banks, fell 1.73 percent amid a decline in the broader market.

Though most of the banks that failed the review were in Europe’s economically weaker countries, the results also raised questions about several banks in Germany. While they passed the main test, they fell short on a tougher measure of financial strength that will apply in coming years.

The review, conducted by the European Central Bank and the European Banking Authority, first checked the value of bank loans and holdings. Then their finances were subjected to a stress test to simulate how their finances would hold up in a downturn.

In all, 25 banks failed the test, nine of them from Italy. But many had raised capital in the months since the review began, at the end of 2013. As a result, 12 of the 25 had already covered their financial gaps found by the review, and several of the remaining 13 had only small amounts to raise.

The test was aimed at restoring confidence in the eurozone banks as the ECB and governments try to get a stagnant economy moving again. It paves the way for the ECB to take over Nov. 4 as the main banking supervisor for the countries that use the euro.

Shares in Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which had the biggest capital shortfall at 2.11 billion euros ($2.67 billion), plunged 21.5 percent on Monday. The bank’s board met Sunday and said it had hired advisers to “explore all strategic alternatives.” That could include a share issue, which tends to hurt the share price because it dilutes its value.

After racking up losses on Italian sovereign debt during the eurozone’s financial crisis, Monet dei Paschi di Siena started a five-year recovery plan that included a 3.9 billion-euro bailout and 13 billion euros in state guarantees.

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