The view of the Ostrogothic past in the Western culture up to the modern age was strongly influenced by the way the authors and culture of the early Middle Ages processed that experience. It was not a straightforward action. Many details of the image of the Goths were received differently in the Latin world and in the Germanic world; other details, although received in the same way, were then developed and interpreted in dissimilar forms. Through a review of the sources dating from the late 6th to the 9th century, we intend to discuss about the strategies implemented to strengthen and sediment a selective memory of the Ostrogothic past. In particular, three historical questions that still require consideration will be privileged: 1) How did the Justinian narrative of the Gothic war and the Gothic experience in the context of the pacification of Italy influence the immediately following Western narratives? 2) To what extent is the image of the Gothic world different in ecclesiastical authors than in other types of sources? 3) How much did the persistence of material documentation (notarial archives, depictions, inscriptions, chancellery documents) condition the view of Ostrogothic rule? Through a focus on these problems, we intend to develop in a new direction a research that has already begun and whose first results are contained in the volume "Between Ostrogothic and Carolingian Italy: Survivals, Revivals, Ruptures".