Frantisek Santini-Aichel

Frantisek Jakub Santini-Aichel (baptized on 28^th April 1680 in Prague - 1709) was a Czech mason of the Italian origin, the brother of Jan Blazej Santini-Aichel.

He was born as the youngest child in a reputable family of the Prague's mason Santin, he was baptized in the Cathedral of St Vitus. He also got trained a mason in order to be able to undertake his father's workshop instead of the oldest Jan Blažej who did not have physical prerequisite for the masonry stone-mason work. He worked together with his father at the new-town Jesuit college in 1702. In the same year, after his father's death, he took his name to his last name. His brother abandoned him his share of money from the father's inheritance so as to enable him to profess the stone-cutting craft, but Jan withdrew from the joint craft in 1704, by reason of the Frantisek's wastefulness.

Though the relationship between the brothers was not harmonic the brother helped Frantisek with commissioning in the buildings performed by him, such as in the Cathedral of Virgin Mary of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlc in 1708, or recommended him to other architects, too. So Frantisek Santini worked as stone-cutting master in number of buildings of Krystof Dientzenhofer, e.g. the buildings of Sternbersky Palace (1702-1707), castle Church of Epiphany in Smirice (1707) and many others.

Among the sculptures in Prague, for example the Statue of St Joseph (the Saint in a fluttering vest with the small Jesus in his arms) at the foot of Town-hall Stairs is being attributed to Frantisek, but his authorship is not sure.

In the year 1707, Frantisek married Barbora Kulichova, the daughter of his father's whole-life friend - the stone cutting master Adam Kulich.

After Frantisek's untimely death, his brother Jan did not scruple litigating Frantisek's inheritance with the widow for a long time.

Extracted from "http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franti%C5%A1ek_Santini-Aichel"