[5] He was engaged for a season of opera in 1872 at St. George's Hall in London, playing the title role in The Barber of Seville, Belcore in L'elisir d'amore and Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte.
[5] The following year, in Dublin, he repeated his Figaro and played Count di Luna in Il trovatore and Valentine in Faust.
[5] Mottino returned to Milan with his wife, soprano Adele Cesarini (born 1829), and continued to perform briefly in Italy.
[5] In 1880, he retired from the stage, and that year he founded a literary magazine, L'Utopista, and ran it until 1887, both editing and contributing articles and poetry.
[3] He also wrote the librettos for Giovanni Consolini's Il conte di Salto (1894) and Cesare Rossi's I fuggitivi (1896),[4] among others, as well as plays, poetry and novels.