18 Part I: Origins
his mother’s ancestors had been doges of Genoa and were related
to the princely Colonna family. ‘He never explained this in greater
detail. ..He was astonished and scarcely able to conceal his delight
when I told him that in that case he must be a direct descendant of
Jupiter, whom the Colonnas claimed as their ancestor. He admitted that
he had not known this.’^13
It is unclear whether he had an ironic relation to the etymological
origins of the name ‘Adorno’, which derives from the Italian word
‘adorno’ = ‘adorned, decorated’. As an adult, he was conscious of such
personal foibles as his inexhaustible urge to communicate and a degree
of vanity that bordered on narcissism. He never made a secret of it, any
more than he denied the satisfaction he derived from the fact that
his name, Theodor W. Adorno, had become the symbol of a way of
thinking that was made famous under the name critical theory and that
has exercised a sustained influence in philosophy, in sociology, and in
musical and literary criticism.
Adorno’s two first names, Theodor Ludwig, establish a connection
with his father’s family as well as his mother’s brother. By giving him
these names, his parents passed on an inheritance of divergent family
traditions. On the one hand, there was his father’s search for material
security, with its reliance on the virtues of persistence and calculation;
on the other hand, there was his mother’s gift for empathy, with its
emphasis on the creativity and spontaneity of art. We may ask whether
Adorno was conscious as he grew up of the complex nature of this
heritage. The question is not one we can answer, but one illuminating
fact is that his whole life long he preferred to use the affectionate
diminutive form of his name. As a child, an adolescent and an adult
he liked to be known as Teddie, and would often sign his letters ‘Your
old Teddie’.
As the family grew in number, the need for a change of dwelling
became more pressing. They moved from the Schöne Aussicht to 19
Seeheimer Straße. Seeheim lies south of the River Main in the suburb
of Oberrad, a district that was absorbed into Frankfurt in 1900, but
retained its village character for many years thereafter. The family moved
here – Dribbedebach^14 – in 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First
World War. They now occupied a two-storey detached house in a quiet
side road. There was a nearby tram stop, and it was easy to reach the
centre of town on the number 16 tram.
Anyone who entered the house in Seeheimer Straße in Oberrad in
which Adorno spent his youth experienced an environment to
which he owed a protected childhood in the best sense of the
word. The traditions that came together in his parents’ house, the
commercial spirit of Oscar Wiesengrund, his Jewish father from
Frankfurt, and the aura of music that surrounded his mother
Maria... , the shining eyes of her sister Agathe who was like a