LAGRANGE: "WHY I LEFT TURIN AND NEVER WENT BACK AGAIN.".

Lagrange was born and lived in Turin until he was 30 years old. Thanks to his fame as one of the most gifted mathematicians of his time, he moved to the Berlin Academy of sciences in 1766. It was a definitive departure: in 1787 he accepted the invitation of the Paris Academy of Sciences and lived in Paris until his death in 1813. He never saw his country and relatives again. Lagrange's biographers have considered such a radical separation as motivated by the mathematician's coldness and insensitivity. Against such a view, this paper examines some aspects of Lagrange's years in Turin (salary, professional satisfaction, scientific career, relationships with the government) and proposes to consider Lagrange's departure and lasting absence from Turin as a response to facts and circumstances which marked his life and career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]