Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián) is a novel written by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The novel is a sequel to a popular fifteenth century set of chivalric romance novels, Amadís de Gaula. The name of California likely originated in Las Sergas de Esplandián, which featured the island of California ruled by its Queen Calafia.
Amadís de Gaula (in English Amadis of Gaul) (Spanish: Amadís de Gaula, IPA: [amaˈðis de ˈɣawla]) (Portuguese: Amadis de Gaula, IPA: [ɐmɐˈdiʒ ðɨ ˈɣawlɐ]) is a landmark chivalric romance first composed in Spain or Portugal. The narrative originates in the late post-Arthurian genre and was likely based on French sources. The earliest version(s) may have been written in an unidentified location on the Iberian Peninsula in the early 14th century as it was certainly known to the Castilian statesman, poet and chancellor Pero López de Ayala, as well as Castilian poet Pero Ferrús. The Amadís is mentioned by the Spanish priest and confessor to Maria of Portugal, Queen of Castile Juan García de Castrojeriz in a document dated between 1342 and 1348.
The earliest surviving print edition of the text was compiled by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo and published in four volumes in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1508. It was written in Spanish. There were likely earlier printed editions, which are now lost. Fragments of a manuscript of Book III dating from the first quarter of the 15th century, discovered in a bookbinding (now in the The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley) show that, in addition to making amendments, Montalvo also made an abbreviation to the older text. In the introduction to his publication, Montalvo explains that he edited the first three volumes from texts in circulation since the 14th century and added a fourth volume not previously published in book form. He later also published a sequel to the romance under the title Las sergas de Esplandián, which he claimed was discovered in a chest buried in Constantinople and transported to Spain by a Hungarian merchant (the famous motif of the found manuscript).
Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo (Spanish: [ˈɡaɾθi roˈðɾiɣeθ ðe monˈtalβo]; c. 1450 – 1505) was a Castilian author who arranged the modern version of the chivalric romance Amadís de Gaula, originally written in three books in the 14th century by an unknown author. Montalvo incorporated a fourth book in the original series, and followed it with a sequel, Las sergas de Esplandián. It is the sequel that Montalvo is most often noted for, mainly because within the book he coined the word California.
Montalvo is known to have been referred to by several other names, including; Garci Ordóñez de Montalvo, García Gutiérrez de Montalvo and García de Montalvo el Viejo.