He was very famous in his time period: the Messa da Requiem of 1851 caused him to receive honors in Spain and in France, and the opera Rolla was performed successfully many times throughout his life. His conducting career rendered him one of the most famous and appreciated people of his time period, also thanks to his production during the time when Florence was the capital. The testimony of the popularity of his compositions is seen in the many elaborations of his operas for marching bands present at the time, as well as the many borrowings and arrangements of his works by other composers. As mentioned previously, Carl Czerny wrote a successful transcription for piano of the themes from Rolla and Antonio Bazzini reduced the same into a composition for voice and piano for Ricordi publishers. In the realm of sacred music, Mabellini remained an international point of reference throughout his life. His biography written by François-Joseph Fétis and Luigi Ferdinando Casamorata in 1863 remembers him both as a composer for opera as a liturgical composer,François-Joseph Fétis, Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique, second edition, vol. 5, Paris, Didot, 1863, pp. 388–90, digitalized in Google Books. Probably written by Luigi Ferdinando Casamorata, who collaborated with Fétis in the redaction of biographies of Tuscan composers. and in his necrology, he is almost more remembered as a composer of sacred works than as a composer for the theater or as a conductor. However, his cease of production after the Fiammetta in 1857 made him remain in the background of the theatrical world, and he was never able to return to the «A league». In some ways, his friendship with Verdi, ended in a sort of absorption: the old operas by Mabellini, such as Il conte di Lavagna, were devoured analogous opera by Verdi, and the operas that were even older, written before the Risorgimento, were perceived as unfashionable. The audience noticed that the operas of Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi, which Mabellini constantly directed, were similar in style and composition, and therefore ended in concluding that Mabellini was deprived of his own individual style. In performances today, there is no trace of his compositions, neither those that gave his fame during his lifetime nor of his great production of sacred music which has been completely forgotten (so that still today a scientific study of his works, which would allow us to identify and number the many sacred music drafts present in Fano, has not been done. See List of sacred music). In his honor, the public school of music and dance in Pistoia "T. Mabellini" originally founded in 1858 as the School of Violin and other Instruments was renamed after him in 1945.
