Then there came occasionally events, which doubtless called the Duchessa di Francavilla from her retirement to the neighbouring, but strongly contrasted scene of Naples; and in all probability furnished opportunities of showing her young pupil something of the great and gay world of the brilliant and always noisy capital. Such, for instance, was the entry of Ferdinand of Spain into Naples, on November I, 1506. The same people, who so recently were making the greatest lamentation ever heard in the world over the death of Ferdinand of Aragon, were now equally loud and vehement[164] in their welcome to his false usurping kinsman, Ferdinand of Castile. A pier was run out an hundred paces into the sea for him and his queen to land at, and a tabernacle, "all of fine wrought gold," says Passeri, erected on it for him to rest in. The city wall was thrown down to make a new passage for his entrance into the city; all Naples was gay with triumphal arches and hangings. The mole, writes the same gossiping authority, was so crowded, that a grain of millet thrown among them would not have reached the ground. Nothing was to be heard in all Naples but the thunder of cannon, and nothing to be seen but velvet, silk, and brocade, and gold on all sides. The streets were lined with richly tapestried seats, filled with all the noble dames of Naples, who, as the royal cortege passed, rose, and advancing, kissed the hands of the king, "et lo signore Re di questo si pigliava gran piacere." It is a characteristic incident of the times, that as quick as the cortege passed, all the rich and costly preparations for its passage were, as Passeri tells us, scrambled for and made booty of by the populace. The Duchessa di Francavilla, at least, who had witnessed the melancholy departure of Frederick from her own roof, when he went forth a wanderer from his lost kingdom, must have felt the hollowness and little worth of all this noisy demonstration, if none other among the assembled crowd felt it. And it may easily be imagined how she moralised the scene to the lovely blonde girl at her side, now at sixteen, in the first bloom of her beauty, as they returned, tired with the unwonted fatigue of their gala doings, to their quiet home in Ischia. Here is a specimen from the pages of the gossiping weaver,[165] of the sort of subjects which were the talk of the day in Naples in those times.