ARTH 375 Curated Exhibition Proposal • Doug McCloud

From Humors to High Cuisine

Welcome to my digital exhibition exploring how medieval health handbooks transformed into printed Renaissance cookbooks. Join me on a visual journey from 14th-century parchment illuminations to 1570 papal press engineering!

1380 → 1570 Time Period Explored
480 Words My Curator Proposal
NYPL & Ă–NB My Primary Archives
Read Exhibition Proposal → Explore Interactive Gallery
CURATORIAL VISION

Exhibition Proposal

Formal submission by Doug McCloud for ARTH 375-6980 (History of Graphic Art). Minimum 300 words requirement (Current: 480 words).

DM

Doug McCloud

Student Curator • ARTH 375

July 7, 2026
480 Word Count (Min 300)
1st Person Tone & Perspective

Project Overview & Personal Motivation

Food and food culture is one of the most universal aspects of human history. As a self-professed foodie, I find the history of food publications and illustration to be very interesting on multiple levels. We often think of food illustrations today as appetizing photography or modern recipe blogs, but tracing their origins back to the 14th century reveals a dramatic shift in how humans organized knowledge, labor, and technology.

My curated digital exhibition, "From Humors to High Cuisine," explores the pivotal graphic transition from hand-painted medieval health handbooks to the first printed, perspective-driven Renaissance cookbooks. In this project, I want to invite visitors to explore how visual media shifted from flat, symbolic representations meant for noble libraries into standardized, technical schematics designed to democratize culinary craft across Europe.

By contrasting the delicate tempera and gouache miniatures of the Tacuinum Sanitatis (c. 1380) with the crisp copperplate engravings of Bartolomeo Scappi’s groundbreaking Opera dell’arte del cucinare (1570), this exhibition shows how the invention of the printing press turned visual art into an engine of practical information design.

Exhibition Format & Interactive Web Application

To bring this visual journey to life, I am building a custom, interactive web application featuring a dynamic Chronological Gallery & Comparative Inspector. Rather than presenting static images on a wall or a passive PDF slideshow, my web platform offers an engaging, multi-layered experience:

  • Interactive Chronological Timeline: Visitors can drag through a visual timeline spanning 1350 to 1600, observing how artistic techniques (from Gothic flat composition to Renaissance linear perspective and cross-hatching) evolved alongside printing technologies.
  • Side-by-Side Art Inspector: A split-screen comparison slider allowing users to directly contrast medieval miniatures (such as "Making Noodles / Tria") against Renaissance engravings (such as "La Cucina Principale"), highlighting differences in spatial depth, color, and figure rendering.
  • Annotated Kitchen Hotspots: Interactive hotspot pins placed directly on high-resolution copperplate prints of Scappi’s kitchen layouts. Clicking a pin reveals details about early modern technology—like mechanical weight-driven spits, pasta-cutting wheels, and copperware grids—along with historical notes on humoral medical theory.

Works Cited & Image Sources (MLA Format)

Cogliati Arano, Luisa. The Medieval Health Handbook: Tacuinum Sanitatis. George Braziller, 1976.

Krohn, Deborah L. Food and Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: Bartolomeo Scappi’s Paper Kitchens. Routledge, 2015.

Notaker, Henry. A History of Cookbooks: From Kitchen to Page Over Seven Centuries. University of California Press, 2017.

Scappi, Bartolomeo. Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi M. dell’arte del cucinare, con laquale si può ammaestrare qual si voglia cuoco, scalco, trinciante, o mastro di casa. 1570. The New York Public Library Digital Collections, digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/opera-di-bartolomeo-scappi-m-dellarte-del-cucinare-con-laquale-si-pu-ammaestrare. Accessed 7 July 2026.

Tacuinum Sanitatis. Codex Vindobonensis Ser. n. 2644, late 14th century, Ă–sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna. Ă–NB Digital Manuscripts, digital.onb.ac.at. Accessed 7 July 2026.

Exhibition Deliverable & Technical Architecture

This project will be delivered as a fully responsive, modern web application built using HTML5, CSS3 design tokens, and JavaScript interactivity. Key UI features include:

  • Responsive Image Canvas: Smooth zoom and pan capabilities for close inspection of fine hatching and manuscript brushstrokes.
  • Dual Color Modes: Toggle between "Dark Velvet Gallery Mode" and "Aged Parchment Library Mode".
  • Interactive Hotspots: Scalable vector overlays on 16th-century engravings identifying specialized culinary tools like the pasta wheel, mechanical roasting spit, and copperware racks.

Primary Digital Repositories (MLA Format)

The New York Public Library Digital Collections. Scappi, Bartolomeo. Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi M. dell’arte del cucinare, con laquale si può ammaestrare qual si voglia cuoco, scalco, trinciante, o mastro di casa. 1570. Rare Book Division, The New York Public Library, digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/opera-di-bartolomeo-scappi-m-dellarte-del-cucinare-con-laquale-si-pu-ammaestrare. Accessed 7 July 2026.

Ă–sterreichische Nationalbibliothek (Ă–NB) Digital Manuscripts. Tacuinum Sanitatis. Codex Vindobonensis Ser. n. 2644, late 14th century, Northern Italian (Lombard Workshop). Ă–sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, www.onb.ac.at/en/. Accessed 7 July 2026.

The British Library Digitised Manuscripts. Ibn Butlan. Taqwīm aṣ-Ṣiḥḥa (Latin translation, 14th–15th century). Manuscripts & Archives Collection, The British Library, London, www.bl.uk/collection/digitised-manuscripts-archives. Accessed 7 July 2026.

Summary of Academic Research Thesis

"Graphic art is never merely decorative; it is a technology of information design. The shift from manuscript paint to printed line changed the social purpose of visual art from elite humoral contemplation to public culinary codification."

This proposal builds upon the research paper analyzing how movable type, copperplate engraving, and linear perspective transformed cooking from an oral trade secret into an explicit, standardized science.

MY GRAPHIC CONTRAST ANALYSIS

Side-by-Side Graphic Comparator

Drag my interactive slider to contrast medieval manuscript conventions directly against Renaissance print engineering as I examine their visual details side by side.

Medieval Miniature

MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT (c. 1380)

Form: Flat 2D Gothic Plane • Theme: Humoral Health • Context: Noble Manuscript

Renaissance Copperplate Engraving

RENAISSANCE ENGRAVING (1570)

Form: Linear Perspective • Theme: Culinary Science • Context: Print Revolution

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My Observations: Medieval Style

  • Form: Hand-painted tempera and gouache on parchment; flat two-dimensional Gothic spatial plane with tilted floorboards and decorative archways.
  • Theme: Humoral Galenic medical theory, presenting food harvesting and preparation as a serene, moral balance of physical humors and noble wellness.
  • Context: Created as unique, hand-crafted luxury illuminated manuscripts for late-14th-century Northern Italian aristocratic libraries (e.g., Visconti court).

My Observations: Renaissance Style

  • Form: Mass-reproducible monochrome copperplate engraving featuring one-point linear perspective, structural cross-hatching, and architectural depth.
  • Theme: Professional codification of culinary science, practical information design, standardized equipment, and systematic labor organization.
  • Context: Published in Rome (1570) during the European print revolution to democratize technical kitchen instruction across papal and royal courts.
MY INTERACTIVE ANNOTATIONS

Deconstructing Scappi's Papal Kitchen

Click on the glowing interactive hotspots I've placed across the 1570 engraving to explore my notes on key culinary innovations.

Scappi Kitchen Annotated
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Click any numbered pin on the engraving

Explore my technical annotations detailing perspective, pasta production, mechanical equipment, and kitchen organization.

MY ARCHIVAL RESEARCH SOURCES

Image Sourcing & Rights

Where I retrieved primary digitized assets for this exhibition.

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NYPL Digital Collections

Bartolomeo Scappi's Opera (1570). Digitized under public domain access from the Rare Book Division of The New York Public Library.

Visit NYPL Collection →
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Ă–sterreichische Nationalbibliothek (Ă–NB)

Tacuinum Sanitatis (Cod. Ser. n. 2644). Medieval illuminated manuscript created in Northern Italy (c. 1380–1400).

Visit Ă–NB Vienna Archive →
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The British Library

Manuscript collections detailing Ibn Butlan's Taqwīm aṣ-Ṣiḥḥa and early European printed cookery manuals.

Visit British Library →