This poet was born in 1516 in Januszkowo, a village near Żnin. He got educated at the Poznań Lubrański Academy.

He studied liberated arts in Padua since 1538; in 1540, was granted a doctorate in philosophy and liberated arts as well as the title of poeta laureatus (laurelled poet). He was a leading poet of the Polish Renaissance era and wrote exclusively in Latin.

Among his works, worth mentioning are e.g. the lives of kings of Poland, from Lech to Sigismund I the Old (Vitae Regum Polonorum...); a book of sorrows (Tristium liber); a lampoon against the nobles’ rebellion known as the Chicken War (Querela Reipublicae); a piece ciritcising the magnates’ private interests displayed at the Piotrków sejm assembly (Ad Polonos proceres). Janicki died in the late 1542 or early 1543 in Krakow.