Contemporary awareness of the diversity of sacraments and, more broadly, of the extreme heterogeneity of what makes up the world of sacramentality has served to discredit the traditional treatise de sacramentis in genere (of sacraments in general). It does not however seem to have extinguished all interest in a study of the common traits of sacramentality. On the contracy we see today an increasing interest in this topic but from a perspective unlike that of the classic treatise. The numerous conferences and articles devoted to the themes of ritual and symbol over the past ten years could be mentioned as evidence of this.