This panel will explore various aspects of how night was understood, represented, defined, navigated, legislated, resisted, and controlled in Italy in the middle ages and Renaissance. All approaches—including social, legal, literary, and art historical—are welcome as night touched nearly every aspect of human activity and was a constant source of anxiety for pre-modern societies. In addition to sleep, Renaissance night was a time and a space for festivals and processions, prayer, meditation, mystical visions, religious heterodoxy, witchcraft, tavern life, clandestine labor organization, games, secret love, night watches and surveillance, nefarious gatherings, conspiracy and treason, rowdy and disorderly behavior, flight from justice and evasion of capture, prostitution, and, especially, all forms of deviant sexuality. We are especially interested in innovative approaches to the night as a social and historical construct in the world of the Italian Renaissance, 1300-1600, that shed light upon these topics and the interconnected "loca occulta" created by physical darkness. Papers in English, French, or Italian are welcome. Please send a 150 to 300-word abstract and contact information to Niall Atkinson or Bob Fredona by 12 May 2006.