Antonio ("Toni") Negri (born August 1 , 1933 ) is an Italian Marxist political philosopher .
Negri is perhaps best-known for his co-authorship of Empire and his work on Spinoza . Born in Padua , he became a political philosophy professor in his hometown university. Negri founded Potere Operaio (Worker Power) group in 1969 and was a leading member of the Autonomia Operaia . He was accused in the late 1970s of various charges including being the mastermind of the Red Brigades (BR), involved in the May 1978 assassination of Aldo Moro leader of the Christian-Democrat Party , among others. Negri was later cleared of any links with the BR. He was, however, sentenced to a long-term prison sentence on controversial charges of "association and insurrection against the state." But Negri escaped to France where, protected by the Mitterrand doctrine , he taught at the Université de Vincennes (Paris-VIII) and the Collège International de Philosophie , along with Jacques Derrida , Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze . In 1997, he voluntarily returned to Italy to serve the end of his sentence. He now lives between Venice and Paris with his partner, the french philosopher Judith Revel.