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 Antonio Sapienza Antonio Sapienza (18 June 1794 – 1855) was an Italian composer and conductor. He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia where he began his musical studies with his father who was also called Antonio. (Antonio Sapienza Sr. (1755–1829) had emigrated from Naples to Russia in 1783 and served as a musician and voice teacher at the Russian imperial court.) At the age of 28, Sapienza left Russia for Naples to continue his musical studies at the conservatory there with Giacomo Tritto, Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli and Pietro Generali, during which time he composed two Masses, several motets and a