Some time ago, while wondering about the origin of the name Los Angeles, I came across a series of remarkably fascinating historical stories.
In 1776, the Spanish exploration of California led to the founding of what would become the famous city. Behind its evocative name lies a much older and more sacred story, one that connects surprisingly closely with Italy. The city’s full original Spanish name was “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de la Porciúncula”—literally, The Town of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, of the River of the Porziuncola. This refers to Saint Mary of the Angels at the Porziuncola, the tiny chapel enclosed within the great Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels in Assisi, built around the humble church so deeply associated with Saint Francis of Assisi.
The Franciscan connection does not end with Los Angeles. The city of San Francisco also takes its name from Saint Francis of Assisi, reflecting the profound influence of the Franciscan missionaries on the place names that shaped early California.
The story behind the name California is even more intriguing. For nearly two centuries, European cartographers mistakenly believed the region to be either an island or a peninsula, as illustrated by the famous 1548 map drawn by the Venetian cartographer Giacomo Gastaldi. The name California itself originated not from geography but from literature: it was borrowed from a celebrated sixteenth-century chivalric romance describing the fictional Island of California, supposedly located in the East Indies (modern-day Indonesia). This imaginary land was inhabited exclusively by warrior women and ruled by Queen Calafia, a powerful queen often described as a caliph.
The ultimate etymological root of California therefore traces back to the Arabic word khalīfa (خليفة), meaning caliph, prince, or more literally, “the one who comes after”—the successor or heir to authority.
Historical cartography, such as Gastaldi’s map, adds another layer to the mystery surrounding California’s origins, weaving together religion, imagination, literature, and history, while preserving the enduring geographical confusion between island and peninsula.
A dear friend of mine—an Ambassador for Culture with UNESCO—once told me about the possibility that the young Saint Francis of Assisi received formative influences from both Cathar mysticism and Sufi spirituality, cultivating a particularly close relationship with the Arabic culture of his time. Whether or not this fascinating hypothesis proves true, I like to imagine him smiling from above as he watches his two great metropolises overlooking the Pacific Ocean of peace, both standing within a region that bears the Arabic-derived name of an imaginary island near paradise, inhabited only by noble women.
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