<p><cite><b> WHAT THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS AND OF THE PARTICULAR SUBJECT CAN OFFER US: </b></cite> </p><ul> <li>A human vision of science and of mathematics: not just truths, methods, techniques coming from nowhere, not just facts and skills without soul, without history, but the results of the efforts of persons motivated by deep interest and passion; not as godlike science, but human and so incomplete and fallible; the human side of the great discoveries and discoverers.</li> <p></p><li>A frame in which all elements appear in their right place: not facts centuries apart in their origin presented together in the same bag without a single remark, but explorations in their own context and with their own motivation; past fashions in order to be able to understand present fashions; the deep connections along time of the different leitmotivs of the mathematical symphony.</li> <p></p><li>A dynamical vision of the evolution of mathematics: the motivation and driving forces at the roots of the ideas and methods of the subject; the primordial creativity around each particular subject, its genesis and its progress</li></ul>