William Painter (or Paynter, c. 1540 – between 19 and 22 February 1595) was an English author and translator. As a clerk of the Ordnance in the Tower of London, he was accused of fraud aimed at amassing a personal fortune at public expense. He is best known for his anthology of translations, The Palace of Pleasure.
Personal life
Painter was long believed to be a native of Kent due to confusion with a namesake, who matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge in 1554.
Painter married Dorothy Bonham in about 1565. They had at least five children – a son and four daughters. By 1587 their son Anthony had joined his father in his government work. Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, Giovanni Francesco Straparola, Queen Marguerite de Navarre and others.
The notable fashion for Italian settings in Elizabethan drama derived partly from the vogue for Painter's work and similar collections.
The early tragedies Appius and Virginia, and Tancred and Gismund were taken from The Palace of Pleasure. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, Edward III, and All's Well That Ends Well are all derived from Painter, the last from his translation of Giletta of Narbonne. Other playwrights likewise made extensive use of work by Painter and similar translators. This is believed to be the case with well-known works such as Beaumont and Fletcher's Triumph of Death, John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (from Belleforest), and James Shirley's Love's Cruelty. Church of England records include one or more individuals named William Painter or William Paynter, with ordinations in 1560 and 1561 and appointments in the dioceses of Bath and Wells, Canterbury, Rochester and Lincoln. One William Painter died in London about 1597, leaving a widow, Winifred, and was interred at St Mary Aldermanbury.