Saint Sylvester church, Catholic church on Mount Totoga, Imer, Italy

Saint Sylvester church stands on a rocky spur of Monte Totoga above Imer, visible from the Primiero valley. Its gabled facade has a three-slope canopy over the architraved portal, flanked by grated rectangular windows. A square bell tower with round-arched belfry openings rises beside the sacristy, once a hermit's cell. Inside, a single nave has a wooden coffered ceiling and a raised presbytery ending in a small semicircular apse set off-axis to the left.

A chapel or shrine on the site is documented in the 13th century, possibly on earlier military or pagan structures. A small church was built at the end of the 15th century through a bequest of the parish priest Paolo Huber. In 1618 the Como masters Bartolomeo and Giorgio Lungo rebuilt the bell tower on the ruins of the previous one and raised the walls by a metre, replacing the vaults with a coffered ceiling.

The church is lit at night and held in high regard by the Primiero community, which comes here on pilgrimage to ask for favourable weather for the harvests. At least six processions a year are documented in the 19th century; today they are held on 1 May, on Easter Monday from the Vanoi, and on 31 December, the feast of Saint Sylvester. A 18th-century document records that San Silvestro formed an ideal cross, called "crosèra" in dialect, with the churches of San Vittore di Tonadico, San Giovanni ai prati Liendri di Mezzano and Santa Romina on Monte Bedole, a symbol of consecration for the whole valley.

The church stands on a rocky spur of Monte Totoga and can only be reached on foot. The easier trail leaves from Passo Gobbera and takes about half an hour; a steeper route climbs from the Masi d'Imer in about an hour. Snow makes access difficult outside summer, so visits concentrate in the warm months.

The church holds chains kept as ex-votos, recalling an 1800s legend: a woodcutter escorted by gendarmes from Caoria to Primiero invoked Saint Sylvester at Passo Gobbera, and his chains fell off. The church is lit at night and is reached only on foot, by trails from Passo Gobbera or the Masi d'Imer.