The shrewdness and trickery of thieves was a universal theme. In Boiardo's romance epic Orlando innamorato, the poet portrays a thief, called Brunello, as one who can climb smooth surfaces like a spider, conceal himself in daylight and take a ring from a woman's finger without her feeling it. Needless to say, such fantastic exaggeration of thieves' skills is no reflection of reality. A more ‘realistic’ portrayal of robbers' ruses occurs in the tales of Sercambi: they set traps on the road for unsuspecting victims, and they cheat their accomplices. In Sacchetti, a miller who knows how to distract his customers' attention while he stole some of their grain prompts the narrator's comment that ‘Thieves’ cunning is like that: they use all the tricks in the book to take what belongs to other people.'

Italian city statutes on theft may be divided into two classes: those that set an elaborate tariff, and those that did not. Tariffs were constructed with two variable elements: the value of the theft and the number of offences. The value of the theft could be divided into a number of monetary levels, varying between two and seven. Only at the highest level (over 50 or 100 lire) was death by hanging imposed for a first offence. Below that point there were escalating sequences of fines or corporal punishments starting with the stocks or a whipping and proceeding through the removal of one or both ears or amputation of a hand.