Tuesday's service at the MCG also revealed the breadth of achievement and the depth of respect held for the man officially responsible for the finest Australian sporting moment of the 20th century.
Landy, who died in February aged 91, is renowned - and commemorated in bronze - for his selfless act during the Australian mile championship of 1956, when fellow athlete Ron Clarke fell in the early stages.
Landy leapt over the fallen Clarke and then turned back to help his rival to his feet, a gesture that cost him valuable seconds and around 50m.
He got going again, circled the field and won a race that assured him a place in the Australian Olympic team.
The act prompted the erection of a statue in Melbourne's sporting precinct - something of an embarrassment to Landy.
He described the event as "that silly race when I whizzed back to Ron Clarke".
On Tuesday, in a video from his family's collection, Landy added to the story and suggested the incident had come to overshadow the race itself.
"I felt ashamed the whole thing happened." Landy said.
"It's not an event I've taken great joy in thinking about."
By his own admission, Landy would have preferred to be remembered simply as a good runner, which, as only the second man to run a mile in under four minutes, he undoubtedly was.
He would also be happier being known for becoming the 26th Governor of Victoria, an office he discharged with the same dignity and good sense that characterised his life, or for his work on the Australian Sports Commission, or his writings on nature.
Or perhaps for creating one of the world's most important butterfly collections.
And he certainly wouldn't have been comfortable for today's state-government service.
"Dad was dead against this sort of thing," said his son Matthew.
"He never spoke of his achievements or displayed his medals. I had a father who was everything the public thought he was."
Matthew Landy described his father as a humble man who was interested in everyone and everything.
He also recalled that as a schoolboy he had only learned from a classmate that his father was a famous athlete who had run at the Olympic Games.
"I thought that all my Dad did was collect butterflies," he said.
"It turned out that he was quite a celebrity in the insect world."
Indeed, Landy senior assembled Australia's greatest collection of Australian butterflies and moths, amassing more than 10,000 specimens in a collection he later bequeathed to the Australian National Museum.
After half a century of academic and scientific endeavour, Landy was named Governor of Victoria in 2001, a position in which he commanded enormous respect.
His latest successor in that role, Linda Dessau, told today's service that while Landy hadn't been wholehearted in accepting the job, he fitted it perfectly.
"John Landy cared for people and the natural world with humility and dedication," Ms Dessau said.
