The essay examines the classical stratagem, its moral ambiguity and its narrative potentiality being a sort of “fabula”. It is always a personal creation remembered by the name of its creator. The essay identifies an hitherto unnoticed collection of short stories under the title Imprese, stratagemmi ed errori (1566) by Bernardino Rocca who bases his tales on Frontino’s stratagems. Rocca creates a sort of narrative genre that could be called “novella stratagemmatica”