University of Pisa become a member of the Universities Research Association. Among its notable graduates there are several national and foreign political leaders including two Italian presidents, five Popes, five Italian prime ministers and three Nobel Laureates as students, faculty or staff affiliates. Pisa has an intense athletic rivalry with the University of Pavia, which traditionally culminates in the Pisa-Pavia Regatta ("Regata Pisa-Pavia"), the oldest competition of this kind in Italy, and second in Europe only to the Oxford Cambridge boat race. In 2013, the University of Pisa finished with La Sapienza University of Rome in first place among the Italian universities, according
Antonio Sapienza Salve regina. He remained in Italy for six years and composed three operas for the Neapolitan theatres which were well-received in their day. According to the "Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung", he was also one of the several composers who produced the dramatic cantata, "La fondazione di Partenope", performed at the Teatro San Carlo on 12 January 1824 to celebrate the birthday of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies. Sapienza returned to St. Petersburg in 1828 where he served as choir master and conductor at the Imperial Theatre until his death in 1855. Antonio Sapienza Antonio Sapienza (18 June 1794 –