When I first came to Italy and was trying to get to grips with the language, mainly thanks to my motherin-law, some words caused me problems. One of these was 'furbo'. If you look it up in the dictionary you will find, 'clever, smart, cunning, crafty.'
If someone says with a smile, 'lui è furbo, or fare cosi è furbo, be careful. Furbo when used to mean clever or smart is more like something my dad would have said, 'Don't be a smart Alec' as a warning to my brother, or 'You think you're such a clever dick' to my poor mum which would have us in fits of laughter. Whatever, it is certainly not a complement.
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