Poslednij provodnik Dante: figura sozercatel’ja v Božestvennoj Komedii [L’ultima guida di Dante: la figura di contemplatore nella Divina Commedia]

This article is dedicated to the mystery of Bernard of Clairvaux, a hero of Dante’s «Divine Comedy»; many theorists of Dante’s work around the world, except perhaps, Russian theorists, have been trying to find a clue to this mystery. This mystery is that this hero appears in the last songs of the poem which describe the culmination of Dante-hero path. His importance is determined by such factors as disappearance of Dante’s main companion Beatrice, she makes way for Bernard; Bernard’s presence at the hero’s side in the highest sphere of Dante’s universe – Empyrean; his guidance at the last stage of Dante’s path and finally the mission entrusted to him by the author – to lead the hero to the contemplation of Virgin Mary and through her – the Trinity itself. The purpose of the author of this article is to suggest her variant of interpreting the importance of this protagonist for the «Comedy» in order to fully understand the poetic structure and philosophy of the poem. For this purpose the author of this work analyses «Comedy»’s’ episodes with Bernard, contemplates the versions of interpreting Bernard’s role in the poem suggested by the most distinguished theorists of Dante’s work, covers the abstracts from the treatise by the hero’s historical prototype – Bernard of Clairvaux; these abstracts according to historic-literary evidence could have been the source for philosophical and theological ideas of Dante-author. This article also deals with the most important aspects of real Bernard’s activities and tries to determine Bernard’s role in «Comedy». This literary study shows that Bernard’s presence is closely linked to the meditative-mariological element of personality and creative work of Bernard of Clairvaux and in its turn it is his presence in the last songs of the third canticle that proves the importance of contemplation and spiritual maturity as metaphors of spiritual path in Dante’s poem. The article proves the idea that Bernard’s image plays one of the key roles in creating poetic essence of the poem; it is like a «center» that unites numerous images of visual phenomena that help the hero to reach the promised goal and the text to gain a harmonic completion in describing the contemplation of the highest good.