In particular:
> Before an execution, nonetheless, he will go to the victim’s family to obtain forgiveness for the criminal. “I always have that hope, until the very last minute, and I pray to God to give the criminal a new lease of life. I always keep that hope alive.”
That's a very different perspective. If the victim's family forgives the criminal, I gather that they go free.
But on the other hand, losing a hand for stealing is horrible.
An excellent novel about he executioners business is Pavel Kohout's Katyne.
"During this time, he executed 394 individuals by various methods, and also flogged, disfigured, or tortured many hundreds more."
So, it was pretty busy.
outline.com/
https://outline.com/https://www.livescience.com/medieval-executioner-life.html
Seeing how cruelty was inflicted stays with you, so I don't recommend it unless you're studying that area.
The closest analogy is that once you see the goatsie picture, you can't unsee it.
At a higher level, learning how government abused punishment in the past does make you question whether they're any more qualified today.
Quick research doesn't say whether this fashion was used in reality or not. The wikipedia article on Italian capital punishment doesn't go into style details.