The article discusses the principles of composing inscriptions which might have been familiar to the inhabitants of 18th century Gdańsk. Johann Gottlieb Heinecke’s textbook on Latin stylistics, “Fundamenta stili cultioris”, was one of the most well-known sources of theoretical knowledge on this matter. There are testimonies of the use of the textbook by professors of the Academic Gymnasium: Gottfried Lengnich (1689-1774) and Gottlieb Wernsdorf (1717-1774). Johann Gottlieb Heinecke proposed that inscriptions be primarily divided into ones made in the old style and ones made in the new style. The old style was referred to as lapidaris, while the new one was called stilus recentior. The former assumed brevity and simplicity of expression, while the latter allowed more freedom in terms of the form adopted. The inscriptions made in this latter style also had a more complex and varied vocabulary. According to Heinecke, the optimal structure of an inscription should be tripartite. This universal pattern could have been used everywhere, e.g. in inscriptions on buildings, or on tombstones. This tripartite structure is also present in the extant epitaph of the aforementioned Gottlieb Wernsdorf himself.