The museum is located in Ligornetto near Mendrisio, about 40 minutes' drive from ARIA.

Built by the Ticino realist sculptor Vincenzo Vela, Villa Vela was transformed into a museum after being donated to the Swiss Confederation.

The museum houses the works of the brothers Lorenzo and Vincenzo Vela, with original sculptures and models in terracotta and plaster and numerous oil paintings by Vincenzo's son Spartaco.

During their lives, the three Vela brothers collected works by mid-nineteenth-century artists who were contemporaries of their own, so much so that the museum's holdings now constitute the largest collection of nineteenth-century paintings from Lombardy and Piedmont owned by the Swiss Confederation.

The Museum is framed by a panoramic park.