A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Painter, William
Painter, William (1540?-1594).—Translator, etc., ed. at Camb., was then successively schoolmaster at Sevenoaks, and Clerk of the Ordnance, in which position his intromissions appear to have been of more advantage to himself than to the public service. He was the author of The Palace of Pleasure (1566), largely consisting of translations from Boccaccio, Bandello, and other Italian writers, and also from the classics. It formed a quarry in which many dramatists, including Shakespeare, found the plots for their plays.