S. The appearance of Bernard of Clairvaux towards the end of Dante's Comedy, which occurs in Book XXXI of the Paradaiso, is not something a reader could predict. Bernardo was separated from Dante by more than 160 years. Bernardo was a monk and a contemplative while Dante was a poet and an active Florentine government official. While Dante the poet might have wanted a saintly person to guide Dante's character into the holier realms of Paradise, he might have chosen a Christian saint closer to his age and geography, for example Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, or Bonaventure. Yet Dante assigned the task to Bernardo. The purpose of this essay is to examine the possible reasons for Dante's choice of Bernardo as Dante's final guide in his ascent from Hell to Purgatory to Paradaiso. Scholars have no conclusive evidence that Dante read Bernardo's corpus. Therefore, tracing the path between Bernardo and Dante will be more tortuous. While I will not be able to provide a direct cause and effect relationship between Bernard and Dante, I can discuss the conditions of possibility that led Dante to choose Bernard. To build these possibilities, I will examine five factors that may have led Dante to Bernard and list them in order of importance. They include Cistercian charisms focusing on individual compunction and collective unity, Bernard's and Dante's concern with church governance, Bernard's hagiography, medieval preaching on the Meditations on the Life of Christ, and Bernard's Mariology as interpreted by Dante. I believe what makes my analysis unique is the emphasis I place on Cistercian charisms and the parallel interests of Bernard and Dante in the governance of the Church. I am different from other scholars who see Bernard's Marius...... at the center of the paper...... in the Vita prima. The fourth factor to be discussed is Bernard's text contained in another intermediate manuscript entitled Meditations on the Life of Christ. The Meditations were written by Giovanni de Caulibus in the mid-13th century. Throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, preachers used this manuscript to evangelize the laity. The Meditations contained sections of Bernard's works, particularly his homilies on the Song of Songs, and Bernard's name was often mentioned in preaching. The fifth factor is Bernard's Mariology or what was perceived in Dante's time as Bernard's Mariology. I want to demonstrate that Bernard was not the Mariologist that many gave him credit for. Finally, I will do an in-depth reading of the last three Cantos of the Comedy (XXXI-XXXIII) in which Bernardo appears. In reading, I hope to show how those Songs reflect the factors presented above.