Electric battery common fuels such as gasoline. In automobiles, this is somewhat offset by the higher efficiency of electric motors in converting chemical energy to mechanical work, compared to combustion engines. The usage of "battery" to describe a group of electrical devices dates to Benjamin Franklin, who in 1748 described multiple Leyden jars by analogy to a battery of cannon (Benjamin Franklin borrowed the term "battery" from the military, which refers to weapons functioning together). Italian physicist Alessandro Volta built and described the first electrochemical battery, the voltaic pile, in 1800. This was a stack of copper and zinc plates, separated by
Italian unification his death. Meanwhile, artistic and literary sentiment also turned towards nationalism; Vittorio Alfieri, Francesco Lomonaco and Niccolò Tommaseo are generally considered three great literary precursors of Italian nationalism, but the most famous of proto-nationalist works was Alessandro Manzoni's "I promessi sposi" "(The Betrothed)" widely read as a thinly-veiled allegorical critique of Austrian rule. Published in 1827 and extensively revised in the following years the 1840 version of "I Promessi Sposi" used a standardized version of the Tuscan dialect, a conscious effort by the author to provide a language and force people to learn it. Exiles dreamed of unification. Three ideals