Jan Blaà ¾ej Santini Aichel (, ; 3 February 1677 â 7 December 1723) was a Czech architect of Italian descent. His major works are representative of the unique Baroque Gothic style.
Baptised as Johann Blasius Aichel, Jan Blaà ¾ej Santini Aichel was born in Prague, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) on 3 February 1677 (the day of Saint Blaise) to a Czech mother and Italian father as their oldest son. Both his grandfather Antonio Aichel (who moved to Prague from Italy in the 1630s) and his father Santini Aichel belonged to respectable stonemasons. Jan Blaà ¾ej was born small, hunchbacked and partially lame, preventing him from following in his father's footsteps.
Around 1696 he started to travel and gain experience. After his journey through Austria he arrived in Rome, where he had the possibility to meet with the work of Francesco Borromini. When Aichel was in Italy, he incorporated his father's given name, Santini, into his name.
Aichel founded his architectural practice in Prague in 1703, attaining the status of a burgher of Prague in 1705. He bought and rebuilt the Valkounský House in the same year.
Aichel studied painting under the court painter Christian Schröder. He married Schröder's daughter, Veronika Alà ¾bÃÂta, in 1707. They had four children, but all three sons died from tuberculosis at an early age; the only child left was Anna Veronika (born 1713). Aichel's wife died seven years later and he remarried a South Bohemian noblewoman, Antonia Ignatia Chrapická of Mohlià ¡kovice, whereby Aichel was ennobled. Daughter Jana Ludmila and son Jan Ignác Rochus were born from this marriage.
Aichel died at 46, having built over 100 buildings in his twenty-year career, but leaving some unfinished. Although he had become a well-regarded architect to Bohemia's greatest noble families and monastic orders, his original, eclectic style had few successors or imitators.
The asteroid 37699 Santini-Aichl is named in his honour.