The church of San Pietro del Fossato stands outside the village, at the place called Villa, and that position is its most eloquent document: until 1300 the people of Cosio did not live gathered in the village but scattered in farmhouses among their fields, and the church stood where the people were. Some sources take it back to the tenth century, but it appears officially in the statutes of Cosio only in 1303.
What to see
Of the original building the presbytery survives, along with some traces of frescoes from the rectangular hall. Among the surviving paintings is the episcopal coat of arms of Giorgio Fieschi, bishop of Albenga: a detail that tells you which jurisdiction this valley belonged to. Later a second church rose beside it, the one known as della Costa.
Visiting
You reach it from the centre of Cosio with a short walk towards Villa. Do not expect a whole church: what is left is a fragment, and it should be looked at for what it is, the material proof of a way of living in these mountains that ended seven hundred years ago.
Our editors' tip
Look for the Fieschi arms among the frescoes: they are the signature of a distant power on a country church, and they are the reason it is worth coming this far.