Jan Blažej Santini Aichel was one of the most famous architects and painters in his period. He was born on 3th February 1677 in Prague as the oldest son of a stone artist. His family supposed that young Santini will continue in the same craft as his father, but he was more interested in art, so his dad helped him to realise his dreams to be an architect. We don't correctly know who was Santini's teacher of art, but it may be Jean Baptista Mathey and Jean Schröder. He travelled around Italy and Austria where he had an oppurtunity to take some experiences, especially of a radical architect Francesco Boromini.
In 1700 Santini kept his own building company and he could start project monuments. He got unfinished projects by J. B. Matheye after his death and he finished them. He met Wolfgang Lochner who was the first important customer for him a few years later. After this meeting he received lots of contacts to other customers especially abbots of Cistercian monasteries who fancied Aichel's work. Abbots were the most interested people of Santini's work. He worked for abbot Jindřich Snopek from Sedleč, abbot Evžen Tyll for whom Santini built Plasy, for abbot Václav Vejmluva for whom he projected the church on the Green Hill in Žďár nad Sázavou.
He got married Veronika Alžběta, a daughter of Schröder in 1707, in the year when his teacher of art Schröder already died. They had 4 children, but 3 of them (all boys) died as children and only his daughter Anna Veronika survived. In 1720 his wife Veronika died too, so his personal life was not as easy as we could think. These sad events did not break his personality and he got married again and approached to an aristocratic family one year later and started really a new life.
Information about Santini are not clear enough.
Perhaps about 60 monuments were designed and built by him and ten of them are well – known master pieces. I want to mention some of his projects - it is the reconstruction of the gothic cathedral in Sedlec, the project of a church in Křtiny which was not realised exactly according to his plans, project of castle Charles Crown in Chlumec nad Cidlinou or the most famous project of the church on the Green Hill.
Santini was humble during his life so we cannot be suprised that his tomb is not in a famous cemetery, but it is in a small church of St. Jan in Prague. This succesful architect will never be forgettable because his monuments will show us his work for long times and especially his baroque -gothic style is unbelievely monumetal for us nowadays.
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