The president of the Real Audiencia authorized that classes should start while they were awaiting the authorization to build the new school for the students; at the time they only had one classroom in the Dominican convent where, in theory, they gave the Arts, Theology and Religion classes. After several decades, discussions and petitions, king Carlos II on 31 January 1676, granted a license to the city of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala to found a university. This would be third royal university in the Spanish Empire in America, and the second in New Spain, after the one in Mexico. After the disputatious process of organization, and five years after the royal decree, the university started officially its lectures of five of the nine classes, on 7 January 1681, with little more of sixty registered students and with its first president, Dr. José de Baños y Soto Mayor, who was in charge of the cathedral, Preacher of the King of Spain and Doctor from the University of Osuna. The university started under the protection of San Carlos Borromeo, with its first directive written by Francisco Saraza y Arce, who copied from those of the University of México which, in turn, were adapted from the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain.