Emma Brescia Gardner, daughter of composer Domenico Brescia (1866-1939), was married to Robert Penn Warren from 1929-1951. While the marriage lasted for over twenty years, the couple had no children. Gardner went on to earn a Ph. D. from Columbia University in 1957 and began teaching foreign language at Mitchell College in New London, Connecticut, in 1963. Her first husband, Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) is the only person to win the Pulitzer Prize for both Fiction and Poetry. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1947 for his novel All the King's Men, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1978 for his volumes Promises, and Now and Then: Poems 1976-1978. Warren also became the first Poet Laureate for the United States in 1986. He also collaborated with Cleanth Brooks to write two of the most popular college textbooks, Understanding Poetry (1938) and Understanding Fiction (1943).
Domenico Brescia was born in Pirano, Trieste in 1866 and educated at the University of Bologna and later became a member of the Royal Academies of both Bologna and Florence. He came to the United States and settled in Oakland, California where he became professor of composition and head of the theory department at Mills College in 1925.
From the description of Emma Brescia Gardner papers, 1898-1996. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 173862886
