[3] His earlier research involved scientific excursions to Switzerland (1906), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1909), followed by an expedition to Mesopotamia and Kurdistan (1910).
On behalf of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, he traveled to China in 1914, performing botanical research in the provinces of Yunnan (1914, 1915, 1916), Sichuan (1914), Guizhou (1917), and Hunan (1917, 1918).
[4] Starting at that time he distributed more than 12,000 numbered herbarium specimens under the title Iter Sinense 1914-1918 sumptibus Academiae scientarum Vindobonensis susceptum which sometimes are treated as belonging to an exsiccata-like series.
[5] He was the author of Naturbilder aus Südwest-China : Erlebnisse und Eindrücke eines österreichischen Forschers während des Weltkrieges (1927), later translated into English as "A botanical pioneer in South West China : experiences and impressions of an Austrian botanist during the First World War".
[6] There are streets named after Handel-Mazzetti in the Austrian towns of Kremsmünster, St. Pölten, Schwanenstadt, Steyr, Wels and Wieselburg as well as the cities of Linz and Vienna.