One of the ways European rulers amused themselves and validated their existence was by functioning as patrons of the arts.

Take, for instance, the Habsburgs, the ruling family of the Holy Roman Empire, who in the 16th century commissioned a series of eight tapestries telling the story of Romulus and Remus, the presumably mythological founders of Rome.

The problem with tapestries is display. They are very large — each of the eight Romulus and Remus tapestries measures about 11 feet high and 18 feet long — very heavy, and difficult to display.

But the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, whose collection of tapestries is among the world’s finest, has shipped the entire group of eight for a tour of America. The tour stops at the Norton Museum beginning Saturday.

The tapestries are woven of wool and silk, of course, but there is also much creative accenting with gold and silver thread as well. What sets tapestries apart from other artwork of the period is the time it took to make them — the historical novelist Tracy Chevalier wrote an entire novel about the painstaking, decade-long sewing of a group of tapestries — and the splendid scale and magnificence of their design. And that doesn’t even take into account the ostentatious financing necessary to pay for them.

Short of a trip to Vienna, this is the best chance you’ll get to see these gorgeous works.

HABSBURG TREASURES: Saturday through April 11 at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach. Information: (561) 832-5196