On a Tuesday in mid-October, the most expensive map ever to hit the market was sitting on the floor of an empty office on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Daniel Crouch, the rare book and map dealer to whom it had been consigned, stood over it, beaming. “I've handled several [similar] maps in my life,” said Crouch. “But never one so gleamingly brilliant as this.”
The map, which was created by a Genoese cartographer named Vesconte Maggiolo in 1531, is one of the first depictions of America’s eastern seaboard. It’s also the first (extant) map, ever, to show New York harbor. (Remember, Henry Hudson wouldn't make it past the harbor and up the Hudson river for another 80 years.)
