Occasional poetry included important genres of Gdańsk literature. The development of the poetry climaxed in the 17th century when Gdańsk experienced rapid growth in the field of science, culture and economy. Johann Peter Titz (1619–1689) was a professor of rhetoric at the Academic Gymnasium in Gdańsk and one of the most prolific authors of occasional poetry. Besides writing poems for the occasion, Titz was often himself a formal addressee of the poems. The events in Titz’s life became the subjects of a number of epithalamiums, epitaphs and gratulatory poems written by Titz’s friends including students and professors of the Academic Gymnasium in Gdańsk (Samuel Schelwig (1643–1715), Christoph Behr (1642–1704), Friedrich Büthner (1622–1701) and the members of the patriciate in Gdańsk (Johann Ernst Schmieden (1626–1707), Constantin Freder (1643–1707). The article provides a preliminary analysis of the occasional poetry composed for Titz and the register of the poems that have survived in the holdings of the PAS Gdańsk Library.

The eternal traveller, who was to become the founder of the Gdańsk Library, traversed Moravia several times and sojourned there at least twice. During his stay of 1562–1564, which was probably the longest, died his little dog named Viola, a reminiscency of his Apulian fatherland taken along in exile. Bonifacio wrote elegies after that death, in which he utters many names of persons of similar Weltanschauung he knew. Together with him mourned his favourite servant Julia: she was to be unable to stand the consequent void of the death and abandoned her master (and lover). So Bonifacio was hit by a double loss. He tried to overcome the depression in which he stayed: He succeeded with the animal, the dogs, who were to accompany him as far as to Gdańsk, but he failed with the women. He was to go his way without company, dedicating his leisure to the reading of his books (he possessed over 1000 volumes), but merging into depression. Blinded in a shipwreck, he bequeathed his books and the manuscript with the verses on Viola in 1591 to the city of Gdańsk; he died six years later.