La extraordinaria expansión jurisprudencial de los supuestos di furtum hasta convertirlo en cualquier ‘azione dolosa sopra una cosa a fine di lucro’ (Ferrini), o bien “…jedes ‘unehrliche Antasten’ einer fremden (beweglichen) Sache in gewinnsüchtiger Absicht…” (Honsell/Kunkel), se hacía acreedora a la conocida nota crítica de Schulz: “The classical conception of furtum was an artificial and unhappy creation of republican and classical jurisprudence... It was not a happy idea on the part of the republican jurists to extend the conception of furtum so far beyond the natural sense of the term.”. Bajo el perfil moderno de la ‘Better Regulation’, cuesta asimismo encontrar sentido a este ‘catch-all crime’. Si los motivos de política del Derecho de tal expansión están lejos de ser evidentes, quizás la via propuesta por Contardo Ferrini en su Diritto penale romano (1902, que se hacía eco de numerosas contribuciones anteriores), de buscar en la transición de la amotio a la contrectatio (Gai. 3,195) la influencia del desarrollo “della teorica del possesso” nos proporcionará un argumento tecnico capaz de explicar, al menos parcialmente, estos desarrollos.
The extraordinary growth of the cases of furtum, until it turned into any ‘malicious action on one thing with a profitable aim’ (Ferrini), other “…every 'dishonest touch' on a foreign (movable) thing with a profitable aim …” (Honsell/Kunkel), was credited to the well-known critical note of Schulz: “The classical conception of furtum was an artificial and unhappy creation of republican and classical jurisprudence... It was not a happy idea on the part of the republican jurists to extend the conception of furtum so far beyond the natural sense of the term.” Under the modern perspective of ‘Better Regulation’, it is also hard to explain this ‘catch-all crime’ reasonably. If the legal-policy reasons of such expansion are far from obvious, it might be the view proposed by Contardo Ferrini in his Diritto penale romano (1902, that summarized many previous contributions): to see in the transition from amotio to contrectatio (Gai. 3,195) the influence of “the theory of possession”, which will provide us a technical argument able to explain, at least partially, these developments