William Painter The Palace of Pleasure
This is a very important book. Painter was Clerk of the Ordinance at the Tower of London where his boss (as Master of the Ordinance) was Ambrose Dudley. The Palace of Pleasure was dedicated to him. Painter’s position made him very rich (he had two manors in Kent) but eventually was accused of embezzlement and fraudulent accounting. Nevertheless he was allowed to keep his position although did have to repay some of the money.

The book consists of just over 100 short stories. They were based on earlier Classical and medieval stories: Ancient writers such as Herodotus, Tacitus and Plutarch but also more ‘modern’ authors from the Fourteeenth century such as Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) and Cinthio Giraldi (1504-73). We have books by these in the library too. The reason this book was so important is that it was a source book for later authors. Here lay the origin of Stories like Romeo and Juliet, All’s Well that Ends Well, The Duchess of Malfi.