What are the characteristics of 'the school of Athens' artwork?

Raphael's The School Of Athens (1509, the Vatican) is a quintessential specimen of High Renaissance painting. It embodies those aspects of the period that looked to Classical antiquity for inspiration.

The painting is a fresco (meaning it was painted in wet plaster and therefor actually a part of the wall it decorates) and depicts a fantastic Romanesque scene that is populated by many of the great thinkers - philosopher's, mathematicians and writers - of antiquity.