The weather front paralysed the Italian capital – but also offered residents the chance to ski, sledge and build snowmen in its famous parks and piazzas.
The city’s schools were ordered closed, while train, plane and bus services ground to a halt.
Italy’s civil protection agency even mobilised the army to help clear slush-covered streets as a city unaccustomed to the big chill was covered with the white stuff.
By noon the snow had all but melted, but freezing temperatures expected overnight prompted officials to close the city’s schools on Tuesday for a second day.
They also issued warnings about continuing traffic and train chaos due to the ice already forming on slick cobbled pavements and streets.
Rome’s Mediterranean climate and proximity to the sea usually result in mild winters, and restaurants often keep outdoor seating open, albeit with space heaters, throughout the coldest months of the year.
Piazza Venezia, Rome’s central square which is usually a cacophony of car horns and a tangle of traffic, was eerily empty, quiet and white as dawn broke.
In St. Peter’s Square, priests and seminarians from the Vatican threw balls at each other.
Near the Colosseum, students skied down the Oppian Hill.
It was the heaviest fall in in six years and the largest for the end of February in decades.
The city, which is not equipped to deal with emergencies due to their rarity, asked other areas to send in ploughs to help clear roads.
Elsewhere in Europe, the storm set dangerously low temperatures.. In Lithuania, temperatures as low as -24C in places were blamed for the deaths of at least three people over the weekend.
Hospitals in the country, as well as neighbouring Latvia, reported a rise in people being treated for hypothermia and frostbite.
Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven’s car skidded off the road in a snowstorm north of Stockholm.
The vehicle smashed into a railing, one of several snow-related traffic accidents in Sweden. Mr Lofven was uninjured.
Meteorologists in Germany reported a record low for this winter of minus 27C on the Zugspitze mountain in the Alps.
Moscow recorded its coldest night this winter, with the mercury dipping to nearly minus 20C on Sunday night.
In Croatia, about 1,000 soldiers joined in the clearing operations in the worst-affected areas, where over 5ft of snow was reported.