Puff pastry seems to be a relative of the Middle Eastern phyllo dough.  References to puff pastry appear before the 17th century indicating a history that originated through Muslim Spain and was converted from thin sheets of dough spread with olive oil to laminated dough with layers of butter, perhaps in Italy or Germany.  Traditionally, however, credit is given to the French painter and cook Claude Gelée, who lived in the 17th century, for the discovery.  The story goes that Gelée was making a type of very buttery bread for his sick father, and the process of rolling the butter into the bread dough created a croissant-like finished product.