Palatini formalism

[noomz]

I'm finding information of the Palatini formalism but I can't find the history or the motivation of this on or even the profile of the person named Palatini. Can anyone briefly tell me some information or is there any source that I can find the history, motivation of the Palatini formalism? I'm also looking for the advantage of this formalism comparing to the standard one (metric formalism), when the Palatini formalism is used, how well it can tell us a physical meaning.
Thanks. ^^

[robphy]

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q="Attilio Palatini"
http://books.google.com/books?id=mCOtbqBPNhQC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq="Attilio+Palatini"
possibly useful: http://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/361

[noomz]

Thanks a lot. :!!)
Could you suggest a case that convince us to use the Palatini formalism instead of the metric formalism so that I could pick it and work on in studying?
Thanks again. ^^

[robphy]

The first time I heard about the Palatini formalism was during
the interest in the work of Ashtekar and his "new variables".
See, e.g., http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week7.html

See also http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9303032 (one of Abhay's students).