Painter, William (c. 1525–1590)

English translator. He is remembered for his two-volume Palace of Pleasure (1566–67), an anthology of more than 100 stories taken from a wide range of writers, including Livy, Plutarch, Giraldi (Cinthio), Boccaccio, Bandello, and Marguerite of Navarre. The stories were adapted by many English writers and dramatists, notably Shakespeare, who uses material from this book in Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, All's Well That Ends Well, and The Rape of Lucrece.

Probably born in London, he was educated at Cambridge and became a schoolmaster in Kent.