and one chief officiated and only for 2 years each; The latter chose his place of residence (in Cevio or Sornico) himself, but had to regularly reside in the other main town to assess the litigation, in difficult cases with the help of local judges. The Valle Lavizzara defended its self-reliance against Vallemaggia. It sabotaged the attempts of some of the bailiffs and of the annual accounts statute to settle the court centrally in Cevio or to overturn the directors. When the Helvetian Republic was founded in 1798, the Valle Maggia became part of the Canton Lugano; In 1803, Napoleon gave the Republic a federal structure and Ticino became its own autonomous canton with Vallemaggia as its own district and Cevio as the capital. In 1824, the first road to Bignasco is opened, in 1860 it is extended to the Valle Lavizzara, later in the Rovana until Cimalmotto in 1882, Valle Bosco after 1905 and Valle Peccia only between 1922 and 1924. In the mid-19th century due to the storms in 1868, food shortage, economic hardship, and the gold rush many families emigrated to Australia and the Americas. Between 1840 and 1870 2000 people emigrated, manly men. Plinio Martini has described the harsh way of life in a novel called "The Bottom of the Sack". The villages of Lodano and Giumaglio have a combined population of around 200 people as compared to 500 in the 19th century. Dialect The Valmaggese dialect is part of the Lombard dialects’ family, also defined as Gallo-Italic. The background is Latin, with many Celtic elements; the dialect also presents Germanic influences, especially internalized during the Longobard rule and the Walser’s settlement in Bosco/Gurin. Human infrastructure, demographics, transportation The largest municipality is Maggia, at 323 metres altitude. Cevio at 418 metres is the former administrative centre and Bosco/Gurin at 1503 metres the only German speaking community in Ticino in the upper Valle di Bosco/Gurin. Bignasco at 443 metres is a village at the junction of Maggia and Bavona valley. From the Middle Ages onwards people had emigrated to Locarno and the Sottoceneri. Population probably reached its peak in the middle of the 18th century, after which a first wave of bricklayers, stonemasons, grooms, traders and artists emigrated on a seasonal basis and for longer periods of time. This mitigated population pressure and enabled relative prosperity. Around 1850, difficult economic conditions (customs unification after the creation of