Circassia in the fifteenth century, and on his return described the country and its inhabitants in a very simple treatise. He says in his letter to Aldus (in Ramusio, ii, 196), that many years before (da più anni in quì), he had seen the land of the Tscherkesses; he must consequently have visited the western Caucasus in the beginning of the second half of the fifteenth century.
His little work on the Tscherkesses, whom he calls Zychi,[1] appeared under the title—
La vita: & sito di Zichi, chiamiti ciarcassi: historia notabile. Venetiis, apud Aldum Manutium, 1502; 8vo.
A translation of this into German forms the second part of the rare work above quoted, under the article “Nicolaus Cusanus”, as in the possession of Prince Lobanoff.
This Aldine edition is of extreme rarity.
It is reprinted in the collection of Ramusio, vol. ii, fol. 196.
The Marchese Girolamo Serra, in his “Storia dell’ antica Liguria e di Genova” (Torino, 1834, 4to., vol. iv, page 234), calls Interiano, “un uom saggio, piacevole, amatore delle lettere, peritissimo in geografia, e ricercatore instancabile di lontani paesi, chi fù il primo a far conoscere i costumi de’ Zichi e Circassi.”
- ↑ Called by Strabo and Pliny, Zygi; by the Greeks, Ζυγοι. The word Zichu, or as some write it, Dsich, in Circassian means “a man”.
